After She's Gone (West Coast 3)

Before he’d been able to ask, the boy had nodded curtly, as if agreeing with himself, then slipped through a side door marked NO ADMITTANCE. When Trent had tried following Rinko, he found the door was locked and all he got for his trouble of pushing repeatedly on the lever was a rattling noise and the evil eye from the receptionist. Pursing her lips she slowly shook her head in disapproval and actually made little tsking sounds.

He’d left the building then.

But he’d been foolish enough to sit in his parked truck and stare up at the windows of the hospital as he’d wondered in which room she’d taken up residence.

She really hadn’t wanted to see him.

Pissed, he’d finally gotten the message and started the damned truck. If she’d been peeking out a window, or standing on a veranda, or peering from behind a corner, tough. He’d done what he could. Telling himself it was over, he drove down the winding hillside through the trees, determined to contact his lawyer and end the marriage once and for all. He didn’t need the grief nor the aggravation. Obviously his “wife” wanted nothing to do with him.

By the time he’d crossed the Marquam Bridge and melded into the traffic heading east, he’d cooled off considerably and decided that instead of filing for divorce he’d drive home, find his good old friend Jack Daniel’s, and have himself a sit-down.

That’s where he’d left it. Drinking too much, suffering from a hangover the next day, and resolving to never contact Cassie again. He’d half convinced himself she was not the woman for him. Maybe not for anyone. Her emotions had always been a little edgier than those of most people. She just never held back. That’s what had attracted him to her from the get-go, her quick tongue, flashing eyes, ability to hold her own in a verbal debate, all tempered with a quick sense of humor. Life with Cassie had never been dull, which had been fine with him as Trent wasn’t the kind of guy who liked things planned or even-keeled. He believed that every road should have a few bumps. It kept things interesting. He’d always lived a little on the edge himself and he’d thought he’d found a kindred spirit in Cassie Kramer.

He should have known better.

The first time he’d seen her she was on the side of the road, her car pulled onto the gravel shoulder as she’d tried to change a tire by herself.

He’d been intrigued then and damned if he still wasn’t.

Now, frowning as he turned into the lane leading to his ranch, he remembered the first day he set eyes on Cassie Kramer, on the road not far from here, at twilight on a wet spring evening.

He’d been home less than a year after his stint in the military when he’d seen her little car pulled into the gravel of the road’s shoulder, her left rear tire flattened. He’d parked his truck behind her, turned on his emergency flashers, and offered to help. Until she looked over her shoulder, he hadn’t realized who she was. Then he knew. She looked too much like her famous mother to miss the resemblance. It was a little eerie and, truth to tell, that part of her had intrigued him, too. He’d had a major crush on Jenna Hughes as a

teenager. Hell, who hadn’t? Every teenage boy he knew thought she was beyond hot.

However, that day in the driving rain, he’d seen something more in Cassie, something real, something tangible. She wasn’t just some horny schoolboy’s fantasy, but a real girl on the brink of womanhood, a girl who had grown up famous, whose childhood had been part of a Hollywood circus, and later suffered unimaginable horror at the hands of a madman.

Her hair had been plastered to her head, her jacket and jeans soaked, no makeup on her face. Determination had been evident in the set of her jaw and when he’d offered to help, she’d declined at first, was a little bristly. But he’d smiled and reasoned with her.

“Got the tools and the know-how,” he remembered telling her. She’d hesitated, her gaze narrowing on him, then finally stepped aside and allowed him to do the dirty work of changing the tire and making sure the spare was good to go before tossing the flat into her trunk.

In the end, her suspicions softened, and she thanked him, and then they’d both stood awkwardly in the Oregon downpour. She’d been young and innocent, with a hint of sexuality in eyes that were identical to those of Jenna Hughes. Noticing a smudge of dirt on her cheek, he’d slowly wiped the mark away. She hadn’t stopped him and probably he’d let his thumb linger a little too long on the arch of her cheek.

Instead of drawing away, she’d met his gaze, then impulsively stood on her tiptoes and brushed her lips across his beard-stubbled jaw. “Thanks,” she said again, a breathless quality to her voice. “Really.”

Before he could respond, she’d turned and walked to the front of her car, slid behind the wheel, and driven off, never once looking back. He’d watched her leave in a spray of gravel as she’d hit the gas.

Yeah, he’d been hooked.

Now, all these years later, he was having a helluva time letting go.

The ring on his left hand was proof of it.

Cassie’s fingers were tense on the wheel. If she never saw Whitney Stone again, it would be too soon. All her talk about helping her find Allie was little more than a ploy to weasel out more information from Cassie, get some kind of inside scoop or something.

Her heart was still pounding from the confrontation. There was a chance she’d handled her face-to-face with the reporter all wrong. What if Whitney, with all her contacts, was able to help in locating Allie? What if Cassie had let her temper do the talking and the reasoning?

“No way,” she said. Stone was an opportunist.

The light changed and Cassie waited impatiently for pedestrians to cross the street two cars ahead of her. Tapping her fingers nervously on the wheel, she glanced in the rearview and for a heartbeat, she didn’t see her own reflection but that of Allie as she had been in the nightmare, her lips blue, her haunted eyes pleading.

I’m alive. Help me.

She blinked and the image was gone, replaced by her own worried gaze.

Could she? Help her sister? But how?

Beep!