Love by Association

Or was the High Risk team wrong in their assessment of the situation?

“You’re monopolizing Colin’s time, my love,” James said to his wife, a tender look on his face as he wrapped his arm around her lower back. “The auction is about to start.”

Chantel zeroed in on the hand James had on his wife’s hip. She was pretty sure, in spite of the room’s elegantly soft lighting, that those fingertips had whitened with the application of pressure.

“No, I’m monopolizing her,” Colin quickly asserted. He glanced at his watch. “We’re making plans for the library. We’ve got another fifteen minutes or so before things get going. I promise to release her to you before then.”

His easy tone matched his expression. James hesitated, but only for a second, before kissing his wife’s cheek and telling her he’d meet her at their table.

“As I was saying...” Leslie was still with them, but the glow had gone from her eyes. “You and Colin just met—like the couple in our mystery just married. Embarking on the new, so to speak.”

Colin lifted a hand to cover his mouth as he half coughed. “I don’t know...”

“It’s perfect because Colin is in charge of all the legal, technical aspects of the evening, and you’ll be our creative administrator. You’ll both need to be there, owners of the mansion for the evening.”

Leslie smiled, and Chantel was fairly certain she saw a note of uncertainty on the other woman’s face now. Maybe she was imagining it all—James’s too-forceful squeezing of his wife’s hip, her loss of positive energy.

And maybe she wasn’t.

Maybe the woman’s husband had just sucked the life out of her with his reminder of the harsh realities in her life.

“I’d be happy to play the lead female role,” she burst out. And then glanced at Colin. In time to see his look of surprise.

An expression he quickly cloaked, leaving her with the brief thought to challenge him to a game of poker sometime.

“Then I accept, as well,” he told Leslie. “I can’t leave this lovely lady stranded without a hero in her first Santa Raquel story.”

His words reminded Chantel that she was going to be expected to write that story, or at least appear as though she’d done so.

She’d feel more confident bursting into a bar, gun drawn, to break up a brawl. At least it was something she’d done before.

Accepting Colin’s invitation to loop her arm through his and accompany him to the rows of seats up front to watch the auction, she promised herself a bowl of chocolate ice cream for breakfast.

Whatever it took to keep the panic at bay.

CHAPTER FIVE

“YOU’RE GRINNING.”

“What?” A piece of whole wheat toast halfway to his mouth, Colin looked up from his tablet—he read the news every morning over breakfast—and focused on his sister.

“You’re grinning,” she said again. Dressed in light-colored pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, with her long dark hair curling over her shoulders, Julie looked about sixteen. Spoon suspended above her grapefruit, she was watching him.

They took breakfast together every day in the small room with a wall of windows that overlooked the ocean.

“What’s funny?” she asked now. In another half hour, she’d be leaving the dishes in the sink for their housekeeper and going up to shower. She had at least two meetings that he knew of that day—one in Los Angeles with executives from the Sunshine Children’s League. She was hoping to get funds for the Santa Raquel hospital to hire a child-life specialist to work exclusively with patients without family visitors.

“Nothing’s funny. I didn’t realize I was smiling.”

“You were staring at your tablet but haven’t scrolled in at least five minutes.”

She was exaggerating.

“I met the most marvelous woman last night.”

“Oh?” Leaning toward him, she said, “Do tell.”

“You can see for yourself,” he said over his bite of toast. “She’s agreed to help with the library project. She’ll be at lunch tomorrow.”

They were having it catered in what had been a dining room but was now a conference room at the Estrada mansion—giving the committee time to look around at the renovations that had been made since they’d last toured the place.

“You just met her and already roped her into helping us?”

He would have, if he’d thought of it first. “Leslie did.”

“And that’s how you met her? Leslie hooked you up?”

He might have been exasperated by his little sister’s nosiness if he wasn’t so damned glad to see the old teasing light in her eyes.