Her Detective's Secret Intent

He’d recovered. Was on dialysis, and waiting for a kidney to become available, but there was one complication after another. Six months later, they’d told him he wouldn’t survive a transplant, although he’d seemed fine at first, other than being tired a lot...

He’d already talked to her about his last wish. And they’d conceived Ethan while there was still hope that he’d live to hold his child in his arms.

“What would you like?” Tad had pulled into the salad place. She had to think a minute. Asked for the turmeric with rice and cranberry because she saw it on the menu board. She wasn’t fond of cranberries. But as she and Tad sat in his SUV at the foot of the mountain ten minutes later, she ate as much of the salad as she could.

“I’m worried sick about what he might be doing to her,” she finally admitted when the silence was rotting her mind again.

“I know.”

She put the lid on her bowl, noticing that he’d only eaten half of his roasted vegetable salad. “I can’t eat any more.”

“You want to walk?”

They’d already perused the small dirt parking lot at the foot of the trail. Not only was Marie’s car nowhere in sight, there were no other vehicles, either.

“Can you?” she asked him, looking down at the thigh she’d seen in an examining room without jeans covering it. She’d never seen him limp, but he’d told Danny that he still hurt sometimes, when he pushed things.

“I can climb the mountain,” he told her, looking up at the top of the peak. “I’ll probably have to limp down.”

Miranda couldn’t go far, had to get back to work and was in her scrubs, but she got out of the car. She figured they could walk until the trail started upward.

And when he reached out, offering her his hand, she took it.

Chapter 13

It took more emotional strength than he’d ever have guessed for Tad to do nothing other than hold Miranda’s hand that Wednesday afternoon. They walked the trail for about ten minutes, then sat on a cement bench. It was in the sun and Miranda had said she wanted to soak up some of the warmth.

What she’d done was look over at him, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her out in a deserted patch of nature, with trees and brush and the mountain ahead of them obscuring them from view. She met his gaze and then stared at his lips.

He could tell she’d wanted a kiss. Maybe as a distraction. Maybe to assure herself that she wasn’t Marie. That she was well and healthy and perfectly safe.

Or maybe because sexual tension had been buzzing between them since the day they met.

He wasn’t a guy who was good at figuring out all those nuances. He didn’t usually get himself in situations where he’d need to be good at it.

But he was a guy who knew that, even tempted as he was, hard as he was growing sitting there beside her, he couldn’t act on the desire pulsing inside him.

Not with the secre

ts standing between them.

She hadn’t pushed it. Hadn’t actually leaned over and kissed him. But she’d reached for his hand as they walked back to the car a few minutes later.

As though they were...a couple. Not just friends.

* * *

An alert was sent out to the High Risk Team late Wednesday afternoon that Marie Williams was safe and at home. Whether or not she’d let Danny make the phone call, seen her husband or just skipped town for the day, Tad didn’t know, but assumed he’d hear the details at the next High Risk meeting, if not before. He was asked to resume watch duty at Danny’s school, and sent a text to Marie reminding her that he was happy to help out in any other situations, as well, if she needed him.

He got a “thank you” in return, and nothing else.

Miranda also texted—to thank him for lunch. He called, wanting to see how she was doing, but she didn’t pick up.

Friday’s phone call couldn’t arrive soon enough as far as Tad was concerned. He wasn’t going to break protocol again and phone the chief unexpectedly. He respected the man’s position, the difficulty of his circumstances. And pissing him off or making him uncomfortable would be counterproductive to the goal he had in mind.

It was time to get Miranda and her father back together. To end a very long and difficult chapter in both their lives.

Where that would leave him remained to be seen. He’d be lying to himself if he didn’t admit he was entertaining thoughts about some kind of future in which he knew Miranda. Dana. Whether it would be back home in North Carolina or here in California, he didn’t know. He was open to various possibilities.