Starting from Scratch (16 page)

H
is mood had been dark from the moment the woman had walked in. From the moment he'd seen her and realized that she no longer looked like the woman he'd been dealing with over the last few months.

Granted, until tonight, Elisha Reed had been the model for the somewhat frumpy, no-nonsense and no-sense-of-humor editor he was used to. He didn't particularly like the type, but he knew how to handle that kind of editor, knew where he was in the scheme of things. Best of all, he knew that he could do what he wanted without interference. Being a bestselling author had its perks and it didn't particularly bother him that intimidation was one of them.

One way or another, he was accustomed to getting what he wanted. It had been this way ever since he'd been on his own. And now, with more money coming in than he needed, he held a trump card. He could pull up stakes and go to another publishing house if he wasn't happy.

That was supposed to keep his editor in line.

But this woman, even before her transformation, didn't seem to want to sit back and just accept the positive fallout for being considered his editor. Didn't want to ride on the end of the gravy train. She wanted to reschedule the trip.

And if that wasn't irritating enough, she'd thrown a final monkey wrench into the works. She'd come here, looking more like a woman than an editor, and then proceeded to beat not only his friends, but him at what they considered to be their own game. If that wasn't adding insult to injury, then he wasn't aware what the trite saying actually meant.

There definitely was nothing to smile about.

Less than nothing. Because he realized that he was attracted to this woman who was making too many waves in his otherwise even-keel life.

Granted, it was on a purely physical level, but he didn't want to be attracted at all, on any level. Attractions meant nothing but trouble. They tended to cloud issues, to complicate life, and his life had always been streamlined. His missions might have been complex, but his life now was simple and he wanted to keep it that way.

He'd been married once, briefly, when he was in his early twenties. It hadn't worked out, as he'd sensed even at the outset that it wouldn't, but stubbornly, he'd wanted to give it a try. He and his ex, whom he no longer thought of by any other name than that abbreviated label, were so far from compatible outside of the bedroom that it was utterly mind-boggling. His ex was everything he didn't want to be.

And vice versa, he surmised.

But that was years behind him. Now, if he had a need for female companionship, he found it easily. And it lasted no longer than a few nights, with women who understood those limits. Women who wanted a little excitement for the evening and nothing more, because he damn well wasn't the kind of man any woman with a yen for stability wanted in her life.

God knew, Elisha Reed wasn't his type. Wasn't the kind of woman he normally tangled sheets with. She represented home, hearth, responsibilities, mom, apple pie and baseball. Everything that had nothing even remotely to do with him. Some men belonged in that setting. He didn't.

The woman was terminally optimistic, for God's sake.

But he still wanted to kiss her.

If nothing else, to prove to himself that this attraction was just the result of an off day.

Off like the hands of poker he'd played tonight. He'd been far from his best. So much so that during the course of the evening, he'd briefly entertained the notion of cheating. He could. He was good at it. Good at sleight of hand and substitution. He'd used that skill to his advantage in several tight spots he'd been in.

But sitting at a poker table in his own house couldn't have been considered to be a tight spot. Lives hadn't been riding on the outcome of the game.

Only pride had.

So he'd banked down his urge to win by any means and wound up losing more than he'd won. But at least he'd played fair and square. As had his friends.

And she had won.

As if to balance the score, he took her face in his hands and kissed her. Hard.

Anger, annoyance, bewilderment and a host of other things jockeyed through him, elbowing for position upfront. He wasn't even sure why he kissed her, only that he did. A gut instinct made him do it. Gut instinct had seen him through most of his life, kept him alive when the odds for living out the night were all against him. He'd simply followed another one.

And was glad as hell that he had.

His hands slipped from her face to her back. He pulled her to him and kissed her again. And again.

His lips tasted of dark promises and were as intoxicating as an entire bottle of wine consumed over the course of a short evening on an empty stomach. There was no other explanation for how she felt. Her head began to spin at the same time that her kneecaps deserted her.

None of it made any sense to her. This was the kind of reaction women fantasized about when they were penning romances. This kind of thing didn't actually happen. At least, it had never happened to her, even when she thought herself in love. Garry had never torched her world. The closest he'd come was in lighting a single match.

Everything now felt hot, very hot. She was afraid to take inventory, certain that she was incinerating along with the rest of the room. Shaking inside, Elisha put her hands on Ryan's shoulders. It was either that, or find herself sliding bonelessly down to the floor and making a complete fool of herself.

Finally, because survival was something that had been ingrained in her from a very young age, Elisha drew back. To catch her breath. To catch her perspective. And to keep from dissolving completely like a mound of sugar left out in the rain.

You're not behaving professionally. Unless you've suddenly decided to switch over to the oldest profession.

She stared at the man who had quite literally, and for no apparent reason that she could think of, rocked her world.

“Is that your way of trying to get out of reading my editorial notes?” She just managed to finish the sentence before she ran out of oxygen. Any second, she was going to start gasping for air like a deep-sea diver who'd been brought up too soon.

“I read them.” His voice was surly, his breath warm as it traveled along her face.

Right. She knew that. But he'd made her forget everything, including how to breathe. She tried very hard not to shiver, not to react. Somewhere inside her a hunger materialized, demanding satisfaction.

It scared the hell out of her.

“You read them?”

“I said I did, didn't I?”

The fog about her brain began to lift. She found her tongue. It was wedged against the roof of her mouth.

“Yes, you did. Now you need to follow those notes. At least some,” she qualified.

It took effort to talk, to sound as if nothing had been thrown out of sync. It was hard not to gasp, not to suck in air at the end of each statement. Elisha felt as if her lungs had just left town. Taking her sanity with them. What was left of it.

His eyes delved into hers. Seeing into the very center of her.
Not possible. Only superheroes have X-ray vision.

She tried again. Tried to make sense. Tried to sound like what she knew she was. An editor. His editor. “We can discuss it.”

He didn't look like a man who wanted to talk about books, even his own. His next question proved it. “Do you want to stay the night?”

Her pulse kicked into high gear, dragging her heart along with it. It raced up into her throat and threatened to remain there. She did her best to sound blasé instead of like some addle-brained teenager who hadn't been with a man since the Great Flood.

“That wasn't the discussion I had in mind.”

“Do you want to stay the night?” he repeated, his eyes holding her prisoner.

Sex with this man would be exciting. Elisha knew that as certainly as she knew that the sun was going to be coming up again tomorrow. Very possibly it would be the singularly most exciting thing she would ever experience in her life.

But she wasn't a thrill seeker. She'd made peace with the fact that things like teeth-rattling, mind-boggling lovemaking was never going to happen to her.

It would throw everything off in her life.

“Yes,” she breathed.

Ryan began to slip his hands underneath her sweater. A squeal of pleasure vibrated in her throat as she felt his fingers touch her skin. Every fiber of her being wanted to do this.

It made breaking away even harder.

She clamped her hands down on each of his, holding them in place. He looked at her quizzically.

“But I'm not going to. I told Andrea I'd be home by eleven.”

The puzzled look on Sutherland's face didn't recede. “Andrea?”

Her mouth felt horribly dry, as if she'd been eating sand all day. “My niece. She's babysitting my other niece, Beth. Henry's daughters,” she added needlessly. “I made a deal and said I'd be home by eleven.”

He let his hands fall to his sides. When it came to women, he'd never been one to push. If the sex wasn't consensual, it didn't happen.

“You lied,” he told her quietly. “It's almost midnight.”

Her eyes widened. “Midnight?” How had that happened? “Oh, God, I've got to go.”

Grabbing the jacket that had slid from her shoulders to the floor around the same time that her body composition had changed from solid to liquid, Elisha scooped up her purse and hurried out the front door to the vehicle she'd used to drive over here. Henry's navy-blue sedan.

Ryan didn't stop her.

He glanced at his watch again. Midnight. And the princess was running toward her coach. Too bad she hadn't left a glass slipper behind.

E
lisha hurried into Henry's house some fifteen minutes later. Added to the shaky feeling inside was the fact that she absolutely hated being late, hated breaking her word, and she'd just managed to do both.

This being part of an active family unit, of worrying about more than just herself, was going to take getting used to, she thought even as she wondered if she would ever get the knack.

“Andrea?” she called out as she locked the door behind her. Hanging her purse on one of the coat-tree hooks, she began shrugging out of her jacket. “I'm sorry. I know I said eleven, but I lost track of time and—”

Turning around, she entered the living room and stopped dead. Instead of Andrea, Anne Nguyen was sitting on the sofa. A soft blue light was coming from the TV set as someone in a purple T-shirt whose hue matched her hair was telling a sympathetic Jay Leno that she really didn't like signing autographs.

All systems went on alert. “Anne?” Elisha crossed the threshold quickly, glancing around for some signs of telltale chaos. “Is something wrong?”

“Not on my end.” The petite woman rose to her feet. Her dark eyes took quick inventory. “But you seem a little flustered. Everything okay?”

No, everything was not okay. Her insides were utterly scrambled, as if she were some young woman in her late teens or early twenties instead of someone who'd resigned herself to being done with romance.

But that was beside the point right now. She wasn't the person she'd been a few months ago or even a few weeks ago. Her sphere had widened and she was responsible for more than just her own very mixed-up feelings. And
that,
not her emotional state of being, was what took precedence now.

She glanced toward the stairs. “Where are Beth and Andrea?”

Anne appeared very composed and at ease. Maybe everything was all right. “Beth's upstairs in bed and Andrea's at the party,” she answered serenely.

“Party?” Elisha repeated. “What party?” She went over everything that had been said between her and her oldest niece. But there'd been no request to attend any party. There hadn't even been anything mentioned about a party. She would have remembered.

“The one she told me you said she could go to.” And then a look of dismay, coupled with embarrassment, washed over Anne's porcelain-perfect features. “I've been taken, haven't I?” Anne closed her eyes, shaking her head. “I just didn't see it coming. Andrea's always been such a good girl…”

I don't need this.

Elisha dragged her hand through her hair, desperately trying to organize her thoughts. Pushing thoughts of Ryan away.

“Not your fault. It's mine. I guess Andrea and I still aren't on the same wavelength yet. But I do know that I never told her she could go to any party.” Maybe the girl had said something before Elisha had left the house. She thought of waking Beth. But then, if Andrea hadn't said anything, Beth might get agitated that her sister had suddenly taken off. She looked at Anne. “Do you have any idea where she went?”

It was obvious that Anne was upbraiding herself as she shook her head.

“No. She just said a party and assured me you were all right with it.” Then, because it seemed necessary to explain her lapse in judgment, the woman added, “She said that you had gotten a call and had to deal with one of your writers, so you'd asked her to ask me to sit with Beth. The story seemed plausible at the time.”

“Right. Maybe I can get her under contract to write fiction for my house.”

An oldies tune began to float through the air. It took her a second to realize that her cell phone, still in her purse, was ringing. She grabbed it from the coatrack and began to rummage around until she located the small silver oblong.

Elisha cried, “Andrea?” before she even had the phone to her ear.

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. And then a deep male voice was rumbling words against her ear. “No. Sutherland. I thought you went home
to
Andrea.”

Elisha blocked the impulse to snap the phone shut. That reaction was triggered merely by her colossal confusion, fueled by a host of other emotions that were rampaging through her, emotions she had no idea were still alive. She had even less of an idea what to do with them.

This isn't about you, remember?

Elisha blew out a breath, shook her head no to Anne, who was looking at her with a hopeful expression, then said, “I did. But she's not here.”

Ryan had always been able to hear what wasn't being said, could always sense when things weren't the way they should be. “Do you know where she is?”

“No.” The single word rang with distress, anger, frustration.

And Ryan heard it all. “I'll be right over.”

The line went dead.

Looking at it, Elisha slowly shut the cell phone and this time slipped it into her pocket. She hadn't asked for Sutherland's help, not in so many words. Not in
any
words, actually, but maybe secretly, she'd sent out a different message.

Because she hadn't a clue as to what to do next. Involving the police was far too drastic a measure and besides, she knew they wouldn't come. Not for something like this. They'd tell her to sit and wait, not knowing that it wasn't in her to sit and wait.

She felt better, more in control though nothing had really changed. Except that, magically, she had her very own ex–Navy SEAL to rely on. People like Ryan Sutherland could locate a marshmallow puff in a snowdrift. A teenage girl should be a snap for him to find, right?

Elisha looked at her neighbor's concerned expression. She felt guilty that the poor woman had been pulled into this mess. Guiltier still that she had to impose on her further. But when Sutherland went to locate Andrea, there was no way she was going to stay behind.

“Anne, I hate to ask, but could you stay with Beth a little longer? I've got someone coming over to help me find Andrea, and—”

Anne cut her off. “No problem. Do you think your friend can find Andrea?”

Her friend. Wouldn't Sutherland just light up if he'd heard that reference? Despite the fact that he'd burned off the tips of her shoes a little more than half an hour ago, she had a feeling they had a long way to go before the man would think of them as friends.

“I think he could find the Holy Grail if he put his mind to it.” And she meant that.

 

Sutherland was there before she had a chance to go upstairs and change into something more suited to searching for an errant teenager. Opening the door to admit him, she couldn't help commenting, “You got here fast.”

“All the lights were green,” he said.

She had her doubts but didn't press. It was oddly comforting, seeing him here. She didn't bother asking him how he'd initially gotten the address. Despite the fact that he'd supposedly been out of black ops for over ten years now, she had a feeling the man was still privy to all kinds of information.

Which was why she was so hopeful about his help in locating Andrea. Not that she thought the girl wasn't coming back. There was every reason in the world to believe that she would. But she had an uneasy feeling about Andrea being out tonight that she just couldn't ignore. Besides, this was an obvious defiance of her authority and she had to put a stop to that right now.

Before she could introduce the author to her neighbor, Sutherland asked her for a photograph of Andrea. There was one on the mantel of the girl with her sister and she brought it over to him.

Studying it, Sutherland nodded. “Does she have a cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“Give me her number,” he instructed.

She shook her head, knowing what he intended to do. “I've already tried it.” She'd called while she was waiting for Sutherland to arrive. Three times. All with no results. “She's not answering.”

The clear water-blue eyes were expressionless as they looked at her. “I don't want the number to talk to her.”

“Then why—?” she began, then stopped. She wasn't going to get anywhere by asking him questions. Quickly, she recited the number.

With a nod, Sutherland turned away from her and the other woman in the room as he took out his own phone. His voice became a low murmur, like thunder rumbling a great distance away.

Anne came up close to her, dropping her voice to a whisper as she watched the author's back. “That's Ryan Sutherland, isn't it?”

“That it is,” Elisha answered, never taking her eyes off the man's back. She hadn't realized how wide his shoulders were until just now. “He's one of my authors.”

Anne was clearly impressed. “I recognize him from the back of the book jacket. Jack loves his books,” she explained. “He's even better looking in the flesh. Ryan, not my husband.” She laughed and it occurred to Elisha that her neighbor was just the slightest bit awestruck. “Most of the time, the picture looks a great deal better than the actual person.” She looked at Elisha. “He's quite a hunk, really.”

Elisha shrugged. “I hadn't noticed.”

Which was a lie, but that was something she wasn't prepared to deal with at the moment. That came under a completely different heading and right now, she was focused on just one thing. Getting Andrea home and reading her the riot act.

Impatient, she raised her voice. “Who are you calling?”

At first, she didn't think he heard her, but then he raised his hand and waved it at her dismissively, as if commanding her silence. He didn't bother looking her way. He brooked no distractions.

It wasn't until several minutes later that he turned around. Closing his phone, he seemed to notice Anne for the first time. Elisha knew better. She was beginning to believe that nothing got by the man.

His eyes now intent on Anne, he asked, “What time did Andrea leave here?”

Anne didn't even have to pause to think. “About nine.”

He nodded, as if the information dovetailed with what he'd expected. His pale-blue eyes shifted over to Elisha. “The name Alex Taylor familiar to you?”

Elisha came up empty. All she knew was that it wasn't any of the people she had notified about Henry's passing. “No. Why?”

“That's the last phone call your niece made before nine.” He pocketed his phone. “Let's go, I have an address.”

Of course he did. “How? And how did you find out what calls she made?” Wasn't that kind of thing supposed to take a while, its path littered with a lot of legal paperwork?

“It helps to have friends,” he said as he led the way out the door and to his car. He was driving a black Hummer. Now,
there
was a car that could blend in well, she thought.

“Apparently,” she murmured, hurrying to keep up. He had already rounded the hood and was getting in on his side. She quickly got into the front passenger seat. “Why did you call me?” The question had suddenly occurred to her.

Key in the ignition, he answered as if it was the most common thing in the world. “To see if you'd gotten home all right. You seemed pretty shaken when you left.”

The protest came too quickly and was voiced too adamantly to be true. “Not shaken.”

Ryan slanted a look at her before training his eyes on the rearview mirror. They left the driveway quickly. She doubted if the vehicle did anything slowly.

“Stirred, then?”

She pressed her lips together. There was no comeback for that. Besides, it was the truth. “Maybe.”

Ryan's mouth curved just the slightest bit. He'd take that as a yes.

The notion was oddly pleasing.