“I don’t tell you for sympathy. I wanted to let you know because sometimes women react poorly when they see my leg.”
Kat couldn’t believe that. “Poorly, how?”
“The last woman I dated said it was disgusting, and she’d never dare be seen with me in public if my leg was showing.”
“Wow.” Kat couldn’t imagine how a person could be so insensitive. And how had that made Damian feel?
“So, I wanted to let you know in case it mattered to you.”
“No,” Kat said quickly. “That doesn’t matter. It won’t affect anything.” Her heart squeezed in sympathy for him. How horrible to have someone treat you that way.
Damian was silent on the other end of the phone, and Kat couldn’t stop the next question from coming out. “How did the car accident happen?”
There were rustling noises before he spoke. “I don’t like to talk about it. Suffice it to say, I was at fault.”
The way he said it made Kat think someone else had been involved in the crash as well. But she didn’t want to push him too far, so she bit back the rest of her questions. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s the past. I’ve gotten over it.”
Kat snuggled under the covers. He hadn’t gotten over it, she could tell by his voice, but she let it go. “It was nice talking to you tonight,” she said.
“Yes. I hope I can call you tomorrow.”
“I look forward to it.” Kat closed her eyes. If only those words were a lie.
Chapter 12
Damian sat at the small table, his knee bouncing. No one else was in the breakfast area. He wasn’t even sure if anyone else had stayed at the hotel last night. It had been eerily quiet.
The scrambled eggs from a box weren’t doing much for his stomach. He downed his orange juice and stood. It was time to get to the bottom of the small-town newspaper. He pulled out his phone and dialed Kat. She answered on the third ring. “Hello?”
“Do you have a key to the office? I need someone to let me in.”
“Yes,” she said, but she sounded hesitant. “What exactly do you need?”
“Can you meet me there in ten minutes? I’ll tell you then.”
“Okay.”
He hung up and went back to his room to get his coat. Soon he was sitting in the parking lot behind the newspaper office. Kat pulled up in her car and got out. He met her at the door. “Thanks for coming.”
Kat unlocked the door and let them inside. She flipped on the lights then turned to him. “Okay. What are you looking for?”
“You want to be a reporter, right? Here’s your chance to dig something up. I need to know why my father bought this place, and why my mother freaked out when I mentioned Pleasant Hollow. The only thing that comes to mind is my father had an affair with Lydia years ago, but I need to find proof.”
Kat’s eyes widened. “An affair? Why would your mother hide that? You’d think she’d have exposed it.”
“I don’t know. That’s the only thing that makes any kind of sense though. Do you have a key to Lydia’s office? Maybe we can find something in there.”
Kat swallowed and bit her lip. “Yeah, but she’d kill me if I let you in there.”
“Then we won’t tell her.”
“I don’t know about this,” Kat said, but she walked to Lydia’s office and unlocked it anyway. The door swung open with a creek.
“I’ll take full responsibility if she comes in while we’re in there.”
Kat followed him inside. “If she comes in, I’m using you as a human shield.”
He chuckled. “Deal.” Damian pulled out Lydia’s chair and motioned for Kat to sit in it.
She shook her head. “Oh, no. I’m not sitting there. If she comes in, she’ll fire me on the spot if she sees me in her chair.”
Damian sat down and pulled out a drawer on the desk. “I won’t let her fire you.”
Kat’s gaze snapped to his. “You won’t let her fire me? Are you promising me job security? Does that mean you’re not closing the newspaper?”
Damian sighed. He had no clue why he’d said that. He was letting his emotions for Kat get to him. He couldn’t promise her anything. In his heart, he knew he was going to close the newspaper. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it to her. He rubbed his forehead. “I don’t know what I’m doing yet.”
Kat leaned against the filing cabinet. “I see.”
They searched through the drawers and the file boxes finding nothing personal. Nothing incriminating. Nothing to suggest Lydia even knew his father. “What’s in this locked drawer?” Damian asked, tugging on it.
Kat shrugged and sat on the desk. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s where she keeps all her photos of her secret lovers.”
“Funny.” Damian searched through the other drawers, looking for the key. All he found were loose paperclips and rubber bands, and an old cough drop wrapper. “Do you think she taped the key under the desk?”
Kat scoffed. “You watch too many movies. Try thinking like a busy woman who runs a newspaper. She’d want it handy, so she could get into her drawer easily.”
“How do you know that?”
Kat pointed to a nail on the wall with a key hanging on it, a smirk on her face. “I looked up.”
Damian grabbed the key and fit it into the lock. The drawer slid open. A stash of candy bars lay in the bottom of the otherwise empty drawer.
Kat let out a laugh. “She’s a closet junk food junkie.”
Damian frowned and locked the drawer back up. He hung up the key, sat back, and threaded his fingers together. “How would you continue this investigation, new reporter?”
She squinted at him. “If I find the information you need, are you going to promote me?”
No. He was still going to shut down the place. But he pretended to consider it. “Maybe.”
“Then let’s do some real digging. Come on.” She hopped off the desk and walked out of Lydia’s office. He stood back while she locked Lydia’s door.
“We’re not going to find anything in here,” Kat said. “Let’s try some super sleuthing.”
“What does that mean?”
They went outside and Kat motioned to her car. “Let’s go get my laptop. We’ll Facebook stalk her.”
That might work. Damian got out his keys. “I’d better follow you. I don’t want my rental sitting here altering Lydia that I was here digging around.”
“That’s fine.”
He followed her to an older part of town where the homes were well established. Kat pulled in front of a two-story bungalow with a one-car garage. He parked behind her. When they entered, a wonderful smell enveloped him. “Did you bake something this morning?”
Hilary came into the living room. Her hair was up in a messy bun and she wore a long nightshirt. She gave him a raised eyebrow look before smiling. “Hey, Damian. Nice to see you. I’m so glad my sister told me she was bringing you over so I could get dressed.” She tossed Kat a glare.
“You live with Kat?”
“No,” Kat said. “She just bakes here. And sometimes spends the night.” Kat smiled sweetly at her sister, that same look Damian had grown to recognize as dangerous. “What are you making?”
“Stuff for the fundraiser this afternoon. You didn’t forget about it, did you? I told them you would be there.”
“I didn’t forget. This shouldn’t take all day. Damian just needs my computer expertise.” She sat down on an old lime green couch and pulled a laptop off the end table. She patted the seat beside her so Damian sat down.
“Okay. Guess I’ll go make myself more presentable.” Hilary stuck her tongue out at her sister then turned on her heel and headed down the hallway.
“She’s moody today.” Kat opened her laptop and logged in. As she waited for her computer to boot up, her gaze traveled to his injured leg.
He shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t want her to ask more about it, so he said, “You don’t fool me. I can tell you like her.”
“Yeah. She’s alright, as far as sisters go.” Her gaze lifted back to her computer screen.
“You seem close.” Damian actually envied that, being an only child.
“We are. We’ve been through a lot together.” Kat logged onto Facebook and pulled up Lydia’s page. It was sparse, with not much personal information. Damian watched as Kat went looking through the different groups Lydia was in.
“She’s in a group for moms? I didn’t know she had a child.”
“You think she and my father…” He couldn’t say the words. Would his father have hidden a half-sibling of his? He pushed the thought away. Surely his father wouldn’t have buried something like that.
“I don’t know. Let me join the group and poke around.” Kat clicked to join then went back to Lydia’s profile.
As Damian leaned closer to look at the screen the smell of Kat’s shampoo or laundry soap caught his attention and he was instantly reminded of how it felt to have her in his arms. The memory of her warm lips on his filled his mind and he backed away from her. He couldn’t develop feelings for her. She was not only an employee. She would never leave her small-town life to be with him. Plus, he was starting a relationship with Amelia.
“We’ll have to wait to see if they let us in the group.” Kat switched over to her email and smiled at him. “Look, I got a response from my Ho Ho guy.”
Damian scanned the message.
Dear Miss Philipina,
I do want to comply with you, however, I live in an area where it is hard to purchase some items. We do not have packages of Ho Hos where I am from. But I can assure you I am not the kind of person to take advantage of others. Please send the thousand dollars right away so I can send you the inheritance money and you can live happily on the seven million US dollars.
Doctor Yong
Kat flexed her fingers, then began her response.
Dear Doctor Yong,
I am quite sad to inform you that I have already spent my thousand dollars after having a lovely conversation with Princess Ding Dong. However, I do expect to get a large sum of money soon, so there’s still time to send me that photo.
As I’m sure you are a busy man, I have searched far and wide, and I have found a website where you can buy a box of Ho Ho’s. Here’s the link to Amazon. If you have the box rushed to you, we might be able to complete this transaction soon.
Have a wonderful day,
Miss Philipina
Kat added a link to the email and sent it off.
“Do you really think he’ll buy a box of Ho Ho’s from Amazon?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I’m guessing he’ll just try to convince you to send him the money.”
Kat opened a folder on her computer and images popped up. She clicked on one and it enlarged. A balding man stood there with a banana on his head.
Damian tried not to laugh. “You got him to do that?”
“Yep. Here’s another.” She clicked and a second photo opened. This time a man had a 100 Grand bar stuck on his lip like a mustache.
“That’s hilarious. How did you get him to do that? And did he have to buy that on Amazon?”
“Yep. I sent him the link, and he ordered it.” Kat’s grin was mischievous. “They bend over backward when they think they’ll get money out of you.”
“That’s kind of mean, though.”
“Mean? They scam little old ladies out of money. I read about a scammer who brings in sixty thousand dollars a month. Sixty thousand a month! That’s mostly retirement money from innocent people. There’s no real way to catch them. The police over there don’t do anything about it. So, I fight back this way. I’m just wasting their time so they’re not draining some old lady’s bank account.”
“I suppose you’re right.”
“Besides, I try to donate to the children over there when I can. I know there are starving kids in Africa.”
Damian’s heart constricted. She barely scraped by. It was really kind of her to do that. “That’s really thoughtful.” He decided to look into the charities that fed the children over there and donate a large sum when he got back to New York.
The conversation stalled and Damian’s thoughts went back to his father. What would he do if his father had a child with Lydia? He would have a sibling he’d never met. Anxious energy filled Damian and he stood. “Sorry, I can’t stop thinking about Lydia.”
Kat clicked on Facebook. “Sorry, they haven’t let me in the group yet.”
“That’s okay. Maybe I just need to go confront Lydia and let her know my suspicions.”
Kat bit her lip. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea. If Lydia’s been keeping this a secret, she might wig out on you.”
“Maybe.”
Hilary came into the room. She looked like she’d put herself together. She was wearing jeans and a sweater. She stuck a plate of cookies at him. “Here. Try these. Are they any good?” The cookies were dark brown, and he couldn’t tell if they were burnt or just had too much cocoa in them.
Damian glanced at Kat.
“Go ahead. Usually, I don’t regret being her test rabbit. Just make sure there are no ghost peppers in them.”
Damian raised his eyebrows at Hilary, but she just laughed and shoved the plate at him again. “Try one.”
He picked up a cookie and bit into it. Despite how it looked, it tasted delicious. More like a dark chocolate delicacy. “This is good.”
A smile spread across Hilary’s face. “Thanks.”
He picked up a second one. “But I might have to test another one, just in case.”
Hilary laughed and Kat made a groaning noise. Then Kat kicked his foot. “Hey, come look. We’re in.”
Chapter 13
For some odd reason, Kat’s nerves were in a jumble as she typed in Lydia’s name to search the group for posts. Only one came up. It was from a couple of years ago.
My son won’t stop talking about the new Transformers movie, but he gets scared easily. Is it appropriate for young children?
Damian let out a breath of air. “Well, then it can’t be my father’s child. He bought the newspaper almost thirty years ago. Sounds like her kid is still in grade school.”
Kat chewed on her thumbnail. There was something off about the situation, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint it. “Yeah. I guess.”
“Then it must be something totally different.” Damian smiled at her, obviously relieved that his father hadn’t had an affair. “Maybe he just liked this town.”
“Sure, maybe.” The words came out, but Kat knew that wasn’t it. He’d said his mother got really upset when she found out where he was. The simple answer wasn’t going to work, but she didn’t want to make him anxious again, so she let it slide.
“Are you coming to the fundraiser this afternoon?” Hilary asked.
Kat shot her sister a warning glance. “I don’t think Damian wants to hang around an old folk’s home.”
Damian pointed to the plate Hilary held. “If you’re bringing these, I’m there.”
“And brownies and cupcakes too. It’s an auction to fund the activities at the center.” Hilary seemed pleased he liked her baking. She rocked back on her heels and grinned.
“Then I’ll make sure I’m the highest bidder.”
Kat had enough of their flirting. She hopped up off the couch. “Okay. Sounds good. We’d better get some lunch going then if we want to be on time.”
“Already on it,” Hilary said, turning toward the kitchen. “I’ve got stuffed chicken in the oven. Should be ready soon.”
Damian looked like he wanted to kiss Hilary. Kat wanted to gag. “Great, then.” She set her laptop down on the couch. “I guess I’ll get the table set.”
“I’ll help.” Damian followed her into the dining room.
Kat grabbed a rag from the kitchen and started wiping down the table. “You don’t have to flirt with her to get food,” she muttered. “She’ll feed you anyway.”
Damian folded his arms across h
is chest. “I wasn’t flirting.”
Kat scrubbed at a spot on the wooden surface, the force making the table wobble and the dishes in the china cabinet clink together. “Right.”
Damian chuckled. “Are you jealous?”
“Ha! Right. Why would I be jealous?” Kat’s arm started to hurt as she continued to scrub. What was that spot, anyway? A blob of super glue? Why wasn’t it coming off? And what a ridiculous notion, that she was jealous. So way off base, it wasn’t even funny.
“You’re going to scrub a hole in the table.”
She turned to glare at him and his smug smile made her want to smack him. She straightened and tossed the rag at him, maybe a little more forceful than she had planned. “Fine. You clean it off. I’ll get the plates.”
Jealous. That was the stupidest thing she’d heard all year. She opened the cupboard and grabbed three plates. What did he think, she was crushing on him? She stormed into the dining room and set the plates down. “Just because you’re rich and handsome, doesn’t mean every girl is going to go all nuts for you.”
“You think I’m handsome?” He raised one eyebrow.
Heat flamed in her cheeks. Had she just admitted that? How stupid. “You’re impossible,” she said to cover her embarrassment. She turned back and went into the kitchen. As she gathered the silverware Hilary came in and opened the oven to check the chicken.
“What’s got you all hot under the collar?”
“Nothing!” She didn’t mean to shout, and she clamped her mouth shut. “I mean, man, he’s so infuriating.”
Her sister raised an eyebrow at her. “Uh, huh.”
Kat rushed back into the dining room. Unfortunately, Damian was headed toward the kitchen and she ran right into his solid chest.
“Whoa,” he said, grabbing her around the middle so she didn’t fall. “I didn’t mean to make you so upset. I was just kidding.”
His strong arms around her made her knees weak. She looked up at him. His eyes held a hint of humor, and something else she wasn’t sure about. He gazed at her, and the memory of the kiss they’d shared surfaced. That toe-curling, amazing kiss. Why was he so good looking? And why was he just staring at her, that goofy expression on his face?
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