“You could have just advised me to bring him to the hospital. You went a step further.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I wanted to see him,” she said with a smile that touched his heart. In that second, he experienced an urge to kiss her. While the snowfall increased, fat flakes dancing around them, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and press his lips to hers and just see what happened.
She felt it, too. Her gaze held his, and his breath seemed to stop in his lungs.
Don’t do this—kissing this woman will only complicate things.
And yet there it was. Between them.
“I’ll give you a call after I see him in the morning.” Then, before he could react, she stood on her tiptoes, hugged him, and even brushed a kiss along his cheek, her lips running across the stubble of his beard.
As she attempted to slide her arm from his grasp and climb into the open door of her car, he said, “No. Wait.” His fingers tightened again, and she paused, looking over her shoulder expectantly.
“What?”
“I have something I want to show you.”
“Now?”
“Yes, but at my house.”
“You want me to drive over to your place?”
He saw the doubts in her eyes. She might have boldly hugged him and laid a kiss across his cheek, but he suspected her motive was to offer support and comfort. He was making her wonder with his request.
“I’ve got a new dog, and I’ve already left him too long,” Kacey demurred.
“Then I’ll come to yours. I just have to pick up something at home.” He saw that she might protest and added, “I don’t think it can wait.” When she hesitated, he added, “I’ll be there in about forty minutes. And it won’t take long. But, really, I think it’s something you should see.”
“Can’t you just tell me?”
He felt one side of his mouth lift. “No.”
“Do you know where I live?”
He shook his head. “I did a little research. I’ll tell you all about that, too. Trust me.”
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion, but she gave him a nod. “Okay.”
“Good.” As she closed her Ford’s door and started the engine, he heard the distinct notes of “Carol of the Bells” through the glass before she backed out of the parking spot.
Lifting a hand in good-bye, she drove off, and he jogged quickly to his truck. He didn’t question why, suddenly, he felt the need to confide in her. Maybe it was the way she looked into his eyes, or
the manner in which she tended to his son, or just because he thought she should know the truth. He didn’t second-guess his motivations, just waited until she was out of sight, then slid behind the wheel of his pickup and turned on the ignition just as he heard the sound of a siren screaming through the night.
Red lights flashed as an ambulance pulled into the parking lot of the hospital and slid to a stop near the emergency room doors. An EMT hopped out of the back, and a stretcher with an elderly man hooked up to an IV and oxygen was quickly rolled through the sliding doors.
He thought once more of his boy up on the third floor and, with the knowledge that Eli was in safe, caring hands, drove with controlled urgency through the coming snow and home. Letting the truck idle, he hurried up the back steps and into the house, where he double-checked on Sarge. The dog, cone in place, was sleeping on his dog bed in the living room and glanced toward Trace, even thumping his tail. “Hang in there,” Trace told the shepherd, then scooped up the information he’d gathered on his desk, grabbed his laptop, and headed out the door again. The truck was warm, and he slammed it into reverse, not allowing himself to ask himself what in the hell he was doing.
CHAPTER 24
Kacey glanced at the clock over the kitchen counter. She had been home half an hour and, while waiting for Trace to show up, had fed and walked Bonzi, had turned on the radio for company, and had already accomplished several searches online, looking for information on Gerald Johnson, who had resided in Helena, Montana, for most of his life, before moving to Missoula.
He hadn’t been hard to find, and in a short amount of time she’d learned he’d been a heart surgeon of some prominence before, as her mother had told her; he’d started his own company to help develop stents for heart disease patients. As far as she could tell, he still worked there, along with several of his children.
As he was a prominent citizen in Helena, it hadn’t been hard to find pictures of his family. His wife, Noreen, and six children, two daughters and four sons, though one of the girls, had died ten years earlier. Kacey had printed out the obituary of Kathleen Enid Johnson, the victim of a skiing accident only months before her marriage. She’d been a beautiful girl, twenty-two, and she had the same jawline, cheekbones, and eyes as Gerald Johnson. In fact, most of his legitimate children took after him, she thought as she stared at a photograph from the past.
As did she, and those living and dead who resembled her.... Dear God, was it really possible?