“Well, that’s good. Because I feel the same.”
When he’d enrolled in her health club, she’d immediately been attracted to his engaging manner. She’d overlooked his portly body and had checked out his portfolio. Realizing his worth, she had set her sights on him.
He, having spent the last five years of his marriage nursing his suffering wife, had been ripe for fun, for sex, for Tori’s raunchy teasing, flirting, and flattery. Bonnell Wallace was a feared and revered businessman, shrewd in all his dealings, but he’d been putty in Tori’s talented and well-experienced hands.
However, over time she’d formed an attachment to him that was no longer just about snagging another rich husband. Beneath the flab left by good living, she’d discovered a good heart, a good friend, a good man. She had grown genuinely fond of him, and for her, that was as close as she was ever going to get to true love.
They exchanged air kisses and disconnected reluctantly. As she clutched the phone to her chest, her smile lingered for several minutes. But when her doorbell rang, she dropped her phone, bolted to the door, and flung it open.
On her threshold stood Stan Gillette. If it had been Elvis she wouldn’t have been as shocked.
She didn’t like Honor’s father-in-law, and the dislike was returned. In spades. Neither made a secret of their mutual antipathy. It went beyond being on opposite sides of the conservative/liberal coin.
The only thing they had in common was their love for Honor and Emily, and nothing except that shared love could have brought Stan to her doorstep.
Her heart practically stopped. She gripped the door for support. “Oh, God. They’re dead?”
“No. At least I hope not. May I come in?”
Weak with relief, she stood aside. He marched—the only word to describe his tread—across her threshold, which he no doubt equated to the gateway to Gomorrah, then stopped and looked around as though assessing an enemy camp. She supposed that to some extent, he was. Her furnishings were tasteful and expensive, but his lips were set with stern disapproval when he turned to her.
“How did you hear?”
She wondered how the man managed to make a simple question sound like he was about to jam bamboo shoots under her fingernails. But the circumstances called for her to be civil. “I saw it on the news.”
“You haven’t heard from Honor?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
His eyes narrowed on her. “Who else asked you that?”
“Doral. He was here when I got home from the club. Like you, he seems to think that Honor’s kidnapper would call a time out and let her contact me.”
“I don’t need your sarcasm.”
“And I don’t need you implying that if I knew what had happened to Honor and Emily I’d be standing here disliking you with every fiber of my being. I’d be out doing something to bring them safely back. Which begs the question, why aren’t you out there searching for them instead of stinking up my house with your narrow-minded, judgmental self-righteousness?”
So much for civility.
He bristled. “Can you think for one nanosecond that I care more about insulting you than I do about the welfare of my son’s widow and child, the only family I have left?” Tori understood exactly where he was coming from. Her concern for Honor and Emily overrode her hatred of him. Having had her outburst, she backed down. “No, Stan, I don’t think that at all. I know you love them.” In your overbearing and possessive fashion, she was tempted to add, but didn’t. “You must be going through hell.”
“To put it mildly.”
“Why don’t you sit down? Can I get you anything? Water? Soft drink? Stiff drink?”
He almost smiled before catching himself. “No. Thanks.” He didn’t sit, but stood in the center of her living room, looking ill at ease.
“I love them, too, you know,” she said softly. “How can I help? What do you know that the media doesn’t?”
“Nothing. Not really.”
He told her about his conversation with Doral and Deputy Crawford. “The house was a wreck. Crawford seemed more interested in knowing what might be missing from it, as if the fact that Honor and Emily were missing were secondary.”
“He’s a deputy sheriff in a backwater parish. Is he up to the task of getting them back in one piece?”
“I hope so. Of course the FBI is on the case, too. They’ve also called in assistance from other parishes and the New Orleans P.D.” He took a turn around the room, but she could tell he was preoccupied.
“Something is bothering you. What?”