Some Girls Do (8 page)
Katie frowned at him. “Wilhemina doesn't wear a collar and she's not a prisoner.”
He met her gaze and Katie did her level best to keep her focus above his impressive chest. “She wouldn't have to wear a collar. She could wear it like a watch.”
“That's inhumane.”
“Not if she were kidnapped,” Michael said. Katie felt a chill.
“The flip side of having more money than God,” Michael said. “That's why the security business is booming.”
“Good for you I guess,” Katie said, her gaze slipping and taking in the beautiful strength of his bare chest.
He shrugged. “Yeah. And I bet you're thinking capitalistic guys like me are taking advantage of wealthy victims like Wilhemina.”
She supposed she could allow him to think that. After all, she didn't pretend to care what Michael's opinion of her was, and he obviously didn't care what she thought of him. The notion bothered her, though, for some reason she couldn't define. “Actually I was thinking that guys like you give Wilhemina a decent shot at not becoming a victim.’’
A glint of surprise flickered in his eyes and he gave her an assessing glance that felt as if he were poking beneath the surface, searching for her secret. His gaze made her nervous. “I've had a long day. I'm going to bed. Good night,” she said and headed out of the kitchen.
“Katie, why didn't you bring whatever you baked today here for the rest of us?” Michael asked.
She tensed, but at the same time fought a ripple of amusement. “Because I only give my sweets to my sweethearts,” she answered, shocking herself with how close that comment was to something her mother would have said. She bit her tongue and raced up the stairs. She didn't know if her mother's spirit was attempting to inhabit her body or Michael Wingate's effect on her body was causing her to forget to be invisible, but she needed to refresh her memory lickety-split.
By noon the following day, Katie began to feel uneasy. Wilhemina hadn't appeared from her room even for breakfast, and to Katie's knowledge, Wilhemina never missed breakfast unless, she was very ill.
Concerned, Katie knocked gently on Ivan's daughter's door. No answer. She called Wilhemina's name several times, but again there was no answer. Fighting a trickle of panic, she discreetly got the key to Wilhemina's suite from the housekeeper and opened the door. The lounging area of the suite was empty. No surprise there, Katie thought, and tapped on the door to Wilhemina's bedroom. No answer. Her concern heightening to outright worry, Katie entered the bedroom and scanned the room in an instant.
Wilhemina wasn't sick or unconscious in her bed.
Wilhemina wasn't there at all.
As if he were peering from a jail cell, Michael looked out from his bedroom window at the Rasmussens’ house. He was on hold with the vendor who manufactured barrier bracelets. He'd be damned if he was going to tramp through the rain looking for that damn cat again.
His door burst open and Katie Collins appeared in the doorway, her face pale, her eyes huge with panic. She waved a piece of paper. “Omigod, she's gone! We've got to find her. She's run away.”
“Who? The cat?” he asked, refusing to believe the cat had written a note.
“No. Wilhemina,” she wailed, rushing toward him.
“Wilhemina,” he repeated. The vendor returned on the line, but Michael disconnected the call. He could feel his blood pressure rising. “What are you talking about? What happened?”
“I thought Wilhemina was sleeping in this morning, but she wasn't. When I checked her bedroom, she was gone and she left a note. She has run away,” she said, looking as if she were going to hyperventilate.
Michael saw his juicy contract with Ivan slipping from his grasp and shook his head. He wouldn't let that happen. He couldn't “Where did she go?”
“I don't know,” Katie said, thrusting the note at him. “She didn't say. But Michael, this woman is helpless. To my knowledge, she's never made travel arrangements for herself let alone traveled without a companion. Turning her loose out there is like—” She shook her head. “Anything could happen to her. Anything…”
Michael studied the note while Katie continued to rail.
Katie, please forgive me, but I must leave. You and I both know I won't find the right man for me in Philadelphia. I just don't fit in and I never will. But your wonderful story has inspired me. It's time for me to venture out on my own to find my future and I have you to thank for giving me the courage. Please don't try to find me. I'll be back before Daddy returns, I promise. Love and kisses, Wilhemina.
Michael stared at Katie. “'What the hell kind of story did you tell her?” he demanded, feeling his head throb with the beginning of a monster migraine. “How did you give her courage? And why did you plant this insane idea in her head?”
“I didn't mean to give her that kind of courage, “Katie retorted, her face regaining some color. “You could tell the poor woman felt lower than snail spit and I just wanted to make her feel better. And I absolutely did not suggest that she go tearing off on her own to find her future.”
Michael sucked in a breath and counted to three. That was all he could manage. “Tell me the story you told her,” he said in a deadly calm voice.
She pulled back slightly and waved her hand in a dismissive gesture. “It was just a little fairy tale my mother used to tell me when I was a little girl.”
“And it went like…”
Clearly reluctant, she pursed her lips. “It was about a lonely little girl who lived in a castle who wished on a star every night.”
“And?” Michael prompted, not liking where this was headed.
“And the little girl traveled to a far-off land and had many adventures and found an injured knight on the side of the road,” she said in one breath, then paused with a wary expression in her eyes. “And the knight and the girl—”
“Oh, no. Let me finish. The knight and the girl fell in love and lived happily ever after.”
“Well, those weren't the exact words,” she said.
“But the sappy sentiment was the same.” He shook his head, a bitter taste filling his mouth at the memory of his own disastrous engagement. His fiancée had been one more person who taught him to rely on himself. “I can't believe you filled her head with these crazy ideas.”
“It was either that or she was going to eat two packages of cookies and sink into a funk,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “Besides, I told her the story while she was drinking margaritas, so I figured she wouldn't remember much of it.”
“You women and this white knight romance forever crap. Those fairy tales should come with warning labels.”
She looked down her nose at him. “Well, I can see why you wouldn't appreciate the concepts of white knight and romance since you're clearly so far removed from chivalry or anything remotely romantic,” she retorted.
He heard the drawl in her voice again and tilted his head to one side trying to place it.
“But that's beside the point. We have to find Wilhemina,” she said. “And Chantal.”
Michael felt the throbbing in his head kick up another notch in intensity. “Oh, hell,” he muttered, thinking he didn't know which would upset Ivan more, a missing daughter or a missing cat. Michael just knew his prognosis for getting Ivan's account was in grave danger, to say nothing of Wilhemina's safety. His gut churned at the image of naive, defenseless Wilhemina on a wild goose chase to find a white knight. She was more likely to find the Hope Diamond in the neighbor's sandbox. And that damned cat. “Tell me she didn't take the cat.”
Katie met his gaze dead-on. “She took the cat.”
“
God will forgive you for bending the commandments in order to earn the money to pay the light bill and feed children.
”
—S
UNNY
C
OLLINS'S WISDOM
M
ichael stared at his computer monitor impatiently as the information appeared on his screen. “Bingo,” he said. “She bought a ticket on American Airlines for Dallas. She departed late last night,” he said, shaking his head in disgust that he'd fallen for Wilhemina's ploy. He hadn't believed Ivan's daughter was capable of deceit. Big mistake. Michael should have remembered that he hadn't met a woman incapable of some measure of deceit.
“She has already rented a car. Texas,” he said, scratching his head. “Why in the world would she choose Tex—” He broke off, realization hitting him. He spun around in his chair and stared at Katie. “Your accent. You're from Texas. Are you sure you didn't tell Wilhemina something that would make her choose Texas?”
Katie nearly squirmed, if she'd been the type of woman to squirm. Instead, she looked down her nose at him. “You know all you need to know and I don't have an accent.”
Michael sprang from his seat and latched his hand around her wrist. “Oh, no. You practically gave that poor woman a map for her own destruction and now I've got to find her. You'd damn well better cough up the rest of that little fairy tale you told such as suggested locations for finding a white knight on the side of the road.”
“There's nothing else to the story,” she said. “I told Wilhemina that my mother was from Texas, and Wilhemina decided the knight in the story was a cowboy knight. How did you find out about the airline ticket so quickly?” she asked and looked down at his hand closed around her wrist. “You can let go of me now.”
Michael looked into her eyes and glimpsed curious contradictions. Her voice was cold, but her skin was warm, her pulse fast, and her eyes glinted with uneasiness and something darker and more basic. Something about her reminded him of the ocean—different colors, different depths.
He shook his head. Where the hell had that thought come from? His migraine must have been affecting the blood flow to his brain. He released her wrist. “I'm going to Texas.”
She nodded. “When do we need to be ready?”
Michael immediately rejected the idea. “What do you mean
we,
Tonto? I can handle this on my own.”
“I'm not questioning your detective abilities, but I think Wilhemina trusts me more than she trusts you.”
“She didn't tell you she was running away.”
She barely batted an eye. “The reason you need me is because you don't understand the appeal of the story I told her.”
“And you believe in that fairy tale?” he asked, unable to keep the cynicism from his voice.
“I didn't say I believe in it. But I understand its appeal and I think I understand Wilhemina a little better than you do. Besides, it may be your job to guard her, but it's my job to be her companion. You were hired to do what you do well. I was hired to do what I do well.”
Michael fought a ripple of impatience as he pulled a carry-on from his closet. There was some truth to what she was saying. He hadn't spent the last few years working on his people skills and he wasn't looking forward to dealing with a flighty emotional heiress. “You can accompany her when I bring her back to Philadelphia,” he said, reluctant to have Katie along.
“How are you going to persuade her to come back if she doesn't want to?” she asked, her gaze turning suspicious. “You're not planning on doing something stupid like abducting her, are you?”
“Abduction is a strong term,” he said, pulling T-shirts and socks from his drawer, but still watching her from the corner of his eye.
Katie rolled her eyes. “Abduction should give you big points with Ivan.”
“Okay,” he said, turning around to face her. “As far as I'm concerned, you're dead weight and you'll only slow me down. Why should I let you come along?”
“Because I understand the way Wilhemina thinks.”
“You already said that. Give me one good reason and I'll let you go.”
She gave a heavy indignant sigh. “Because I know Texas better than you do,” she said, in a drawl that dripped with southern hospitality and a sex appeal so strong he was speechless for at least three seconds.
He stared at her. “I knew you weren't from Philadelphia. Bits of your accent leak into your voice every now and then.”
“So give yourself a gold star: When do you want to leave?”
Grudgingly admitting that she might be useful, he shrugged. “Five minutes ago. Pack light and fast.”
She barely blinked. “No problem,” she said as if she had experience packing light and fast. He would wonder when she'd gotten that experience another time. Now he had to focus on finding Wilhemina. And the damn cat.
Katie was going to hell.
She had always felt that returning to Texas would be her own personal trip to hell. If the airplane crashed and she didn't make it to Texas, then she would probably go to hell for not taking out a life insurance policy on herself to protect Jeremy's future and for telling Wilhemina the fairy tale that had inspired her to run away.
She sat in the-center seat of the 737 trying to appear as if she were a seasoned air traveler. She surreptitiously looked: through the seat pocket in front of her, poring over the emergency instructions and locating the air sickness bag. Upset to learn there was no parachute, she twisted in her seat between Michael and a pregnant woman with a young toddler on her lap as the plane taxied down the runway.
“White knuckle flyer?” Michael asked, glancing pointedly at her fingers clutching his sleeve.
Embarrassed, Katie immediately jerked her hand to her lap. “Sorry, I thought it was the armrest.” She couldn't stop thinking about Jeremy. Although she had a small life insurance policy as part of her employee's benefits, she knew Jeremy's care would be expensive. When she thought about what might happen to him if she should die, she could hardly breathe.
“It's okay. Lots of people are uneasy about flying,” he said, surprising her with his charity. “Do you want me to get you a drink?”
She shook her head, fearing that if she tried to swallow anything, she would need to use the airsickness bag. The engines roared and the plane picked up speed, barreling down the runway. Her heart pounding, Katie closed her eyes and prayed. “I know I haven't been perfect, but if you could please just keep me alive until I get a life insurance policy,” she whispered.
