Something exactly like the car that had run into hers.
Roarke Campbell Takes First Place in Coast Race, the headline read, and all the slim hopes she’d clung to during the past half hour fell away.
The man in the photo and the man standing in front of her, waiting impatiently for her to lift her head for his ministrations, were one and the same.
“I’m not going to do surgery, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
She looked at him. He was laughing—at her, she knew—and why wouldn’t he? She probably looked as if she were about to faint.
“It—it’s the peroxide,” she said quickly, nodding toward the open bottle he’d placed on the table beside her. “The smell of it takes me back to when I was little. I fell and cut my knee, and—and I had to have it stitched.”
“This cut’s too small for stitches,” he said, frowning as he drew her hair back from her temple. “Tell me if it hurts.”
It might have hurt; she had no way of knowing. Her head was whirling as she tried to sort out everything that was happening. Had Dr. Ronald lied to her?
“Are you sure my baby’s going to a good home?” she’d said anxiously that last morning, and he’d put his arm around her shoulders and assured her that he’d personally chosen the people who were adopting her child.
“Good, solid folks,” he’d said, “the both of them.”
Her eyes flickered across Campbell’s face. He was swabbing the cut, his mouth narrowed in concentration. Would she—would anyone—call him good and solid?
No. There were better ways to describe that hard, almost harsh face with its square jaw and piercing eyes with their dark, thick lashes.
“…looked at. All right?”
Jennifer blinked. She looked up, and their eyes met. “I—I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “Did you—did you say something?”
“I said, what really matters is this bump on your forehead, not the cut. Does it hurt when I touch it?”
His fingers brushed lightly across her skin. His touch was cool, soothing against her flesh. She swallowed, then pulled back.
“A little.”
He frowned. “You might want to have a doctor take a look when you get to San Juan.”
“I—I don’t think the cut will scar.”
“Neither do I.” His gaze swept over her face, lingering for a heartbeat on her parted lips. “It would be a pity to let anything spoil such a—” His frown deepened, and suddenly he stepped away from her. “Well,” he said briskly, “that’s taken care of. Now for the phone calls. If you give me the name of the rental agency, I’ll notify them for you while I’m at it.”
“Ace Rentals,” she said.
Why argue?
He was taking charge of things easily, as if he did this every day of his life. Well, that was dumb. He did do this every day of his life. He was the head of a multi-billion-dollar company that bore his name.
He was L.R. Campbell.
Her head felt as if someone were trying to punch a hole through it.
She turned away and made her way carefully up the steps into the open cockpit. The air had cooled a little, enough so that the wind coming in from the sea sent a feathery chill along her flesh. She pushed the hair back from her eyes, leaned her arms on the railing, and stared out over the water.
It was peaceful here with no sound except the sigh of the wind and the creak of the mooring lines, but she’d have traded all that tranquility for the security of her San Juan hotel room. There was so much to sift through, so much to try to sort out, and she couldn’t do it here, not with Roarke in the cabin. Just seeing him was confusing enough. Trying to imagine him as her child’s adoptive father was impossible.
Unless—unless he wasn’t.
Jennifer’s heart lifted a little.
Campbell was really a fairly common name. Maybe the detective had found the wrong man. Yes. That had to be it. Yes. To think anything else was insane. Dr. Ronald wouldn’t have deceived her. He’d guided her through the darkest days of her life and he’d never once let her down, not even on that terrible last morning when she’d almost lost her courage.