Her Detective's Secret Intent

Unless her father didn’t want him to. There was nothing out of the realm of possibility where Brian O’Connor was concerned. She’d spent the first twenty years of her life watching him in action. Everyone she knew in her old life—other than a few people from college in Asheville—knew and loved her father. He’d lived an exemplary life, every place but in their home.

“How does going on vacation sound?” she asked Ethan as they drove home after school. Her scrubs, the bears with hearts, had a stain on the front from a can of orange drink she’d dropped while eating lunch in her office. It was bugging the crap out of her.

“Where to?”

“I don’t know. We haven’t been to Disneyland yet.” A person could get lost there for a day or two. Mostly she needed him to be prepared for the fact that they might go on a trip soon. She’d work out the rest as it came.

“What about school?”

“Maybe it would just be for a weekend. Maybe we could go to Yellowstone National Park. You said you wanted to do that after you learned about it at the beginning of the year.”

“Is Tad coming?”

“I haven’t decided if we’re going yet or not,” she told him, trying to sound vague, a “talk about the weather” type of conversation. “But if we do, no, I was thinking just you and me. We’ve never gone on vacation.”

“If we go, can I swim in a hotel pool?” Jimmy had talked to him about his family trip to a resort in Mexico over Christmas. According to him, the best part had been the pool.

“Yes.”

“Cool!”

She’d stopped at a light. She turned to look at him. “If you had to pick your five favorite things, what would they be?”

“Why?” He looked at her, eyes wide behind his glasses. “You aren’t going to make me give away more stuff, are you?”

“I have no plans to pack up your stuff,” she said truthfully. “It’s a game.” For now. “I think I know what they are and I want to see if I’m right. Then you think of five of mine and see if you’re right.”

“That’s a dumb kinda game.”

Probably. But it was the best she could come up with at the moment.

“Tell me anyway,” she said. Depending on what they were, she’d know to grab them if she had a chance in the event that they had to leave.

Not that he could keep them long-term. If they had to start new lives, everything would go. Or be buried somewhere, like her gold heart charm from Jeff.

But having them with him in the short run would help. She knew. Been there, done that.

“My blue teddy bear, but don’t tell Jimmy. Or anyone,” Ethan said, his small face serious. He was watching out the front of the car as if getting them home safely was his responsibility.

“This is our game, sweetie. I don’t tell anyone our private stuff.”

“Not even Tad?”

“Nope, not even Tad.” Though that was getting increasingly more difficult. It was breaking her heart. “Okay, what else besides the teddy?”

“Zoo Attack, that award I got at Charlie’s for winning Skee-Ball, my model car and the M&M’s from Easter that are still in the ’frigerator.”

Smiling, she said, “Ready for mine?”

“Wait.” He frowned. A minute or so passed, and he said, “Okay, now I’m ready.”

“The charm bracelet you gave me last Christmas, the picture you drew of us in preschool that’s in my bedroom, the clay bowl you made last year, pictures of you when you were a baby...”

“You said only five things. Pictures are more than five in one thing.”

Smart boy. “Okay, the one with you in the little blue suit.” Because baby pictur

es could never be replaced. She’d cried so hard, leaving his newborn photos behind. And one of the first things she’d done as Miranda Blake was get new photos done. He’d been three months then. “And for my last thiinngg...” The memory of making love with Tad Newberry. “My PA certificate.”