Ryan snapped out of his thoughts, which had been focused mainly on how, if they’d been closer, Trish might have told him where she was going and why.
That had always been one of Sasha’s main complaints about him; family was everything to her, and she couldn’t understand his attitude toward his own. She’d more than once told him if anything ever happened to one of them, he’d be sorry he’d taken them for granted.
He’d blithely brushed it off as a skewed view because of the work she did. But now…
He made himself focus on her question. “No. It was printed, on her ink-jet printer. Why?”
“Hand-signed?”
“Yes. And she handwrote ‘Don’t worry,’ at the bottom. As if,” he ended with another grimace. “Why does it matter?”
“Not sure it does yet. Is that her normal way of communicating? Does she leave notes often?”
“I don’t know if she does at home. She usually texts me.”
“Does she use computers like you do?”
He gave her a sharp look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“This isn’t about you, Ryan,” she said. “I’m just asking if this would be her typical way of doing this, leaving a computer-generated note rather than a handwritten one.”
“Oh.” At her patient tone, he felt like a fool. “Yes, she probably would. She uses her laptop for most things like that, but she’s not…into them like I am.”
“Few people are,” Sasha said, and Ryan reined in his initial gut reaction with the ease of long practice. He’d heard the sentiment, often in tones of derision, too many times to get upset, he told himself.
That it still stung coming from her was something he’d just have to deal with.
“But to be fair,” she went on, “few people can make them dance to order like you can, either.”
He blinked. “I…Was that a compliment?”
She looked surprised as she glanced at him. “Of course it was. That software program you wrote for us, the one that links us to all the databases, that’s been an incredible help.”
“Oh.” A kernel of warmth blossomed inside him.
“I could tell you about at least half of my past ten cases where something we found with your system got things going when we were at a loss. And at least three of those…well, it probably made the difference between life and death.”
Startled, Ryan turned in his seat and stared at her. “You mean that literally?”
“I do,” she said firmly.
“That’s…wow.”
She glanced at him. “That wasn’t why you did it though, was it?”
He looked away, shifted his gaze to the front, through the windshield again, his thumbnail digging into the side of his finger.
“I admit,” he said finally, “when they asked me about doing it, it was just a challenge. Setting up all the parameters, the search engine, the query path, all of that, and to get it to work with all the different databases when each one was set up slightly differently.”
“You were focused on the how, not the why.”
“Yes,” he said, glad she understood at least that much. They’d talked about this when they’d been together, but she hadn’t listened to him before. She’d been so astonished that the why, helping find lost souls, hadn’t been the moving force behind his work, that she’d been almost angry with him.
One of the many times she’d been almost angry with him.
And he hadn’t understood. Not at all. “If the end result is what you need, do the reasons matter?” he’d asked.
“Only because I was starting to care about you,” she’d retorted.
He’d realized later that was the beginning of the end.
“So it doesn’t bother you now that my motivation wasn’t the same as yours?” he asked, wondering if he was going to regret asking.
“No,” she said. “Not now.”
He smiled, relieved, although not quite sure why it still mattered after all this time.
It wasn’t until they pulled up in front of the house he’d grown up in that it occurred to him that perhaps he shouldn’t be relieved at her words at all. That “not now” merely meant it didn’t bother her because she truly didn’t care.
No surprise, Barton. You knew that.
No, no surprise that she didn’t care.
The surprise was that it stung.
“Your home is lovely,” Sasha said.
“Thank you,” Joan Barton said.
Ryan watched his mother bustle around, fussing over the plate of cookies she’d put out with the fresh coffee she’d served. He knew it was just her way—when she was worried, she fussed—but Sasha didn’t. He should have warned her.
Then again, maybe not; she seemed unflustered by it. Indeed, she’d been effusive in her thanks, and her compliments about the house, especially the colorful garden out front, his mother’s ongoing pet project, the cookies, the coffee, everything.
Ryan thought she was going a bit over the top. It was just a house, after all, and the cookies were good, but his mom made them all the time, it wasn’t anything unusual. But Sasha was chatting away, as if she were worried about making a favorable impression.
As if he’d brought a date home to meet the parents, he thought suddenly, tensely. The idea put a whole new light on her easy chatter.
“Your home is also very comfortable,” Sasha was saying. “In my parents’ place, you’re almost afraid to move. My mother, she collects. Mostly small, breakable things.”
“Dustcatchers,” Joan said with a laugh. “That’s what Patrick calls them.”
Sasha looked at his father and smiled. “And right you are.”
“Hate all that clutter,” he muttered, but he smiled back at her.
Ryan realized abruptly that this was the first time in a week he’d seen a real smile out of either of his parents. And certainly the first time he’d heard his mother laugh, even though it had been a bit faint.
He looked at Sasha with a new admiration. He’d never seen her work before, but if this was how she did it, he was impressed. In a matter of minutes, she’d not only charmed them, but relieved at least some of their tension.
He felt a little silly. He should have known there was good reason that she’d become so quickly indispensable at the foundation.
“I remember you,” Patrick Barton said suddenly. Then, with a sideways glance at his son, he added, “Always thought Ryan should never have let you get away.”
“Dad!”
It burst from him before he could stop it. And he wished he had stopped it; he would have liked to hear what Sasha’s answer to that would have been. But after his yelp, she merely smiled.
“I thank you for the compliment,” Sasha said. “Now shall we get to why I’m here?”
“I thought your foundation only worked with children? The police keep telling us Trish isn’t one anymore,” Joan said, sounding aggrieved.
Sasha hesitated for a moment, and Ryan wondered if she’d guessed that his mother had asked not only out of curiosity, but to delay