The waitress set two cups of steaming dark brew on the table. “Anything else?”
Hadden lifted his hand in a negative signal and the young woman scurried off to help another customer who’d just arrived.
“I don’t doubt Carrington’s character as a husband,” Hadden said, some indefinable emotion filtering into his tone. “This is about his business dealings.”
Confusion lined Kayla’s brow. Hadden’s tone as well as his statement bewildered her. “Marshall is an archaeology professor. Outside his occasional jaunt to search for some ancient relic, what on earth could you find questionable about his profession?”
Hadden’s expression closed then, like a bank vault door slamming shut to fend off trespassers. The abrupt change set Kayla on edge. Whatever he intended to share with her, there was a great deal more he planned to keep to himself. Somehow it related to Marshall. And she knew before he spoke that it was not good.
“We have reason to suspect your friend Marshall is eyeball deep in a smuggling ring.”
Chapter 2
Noon had come and gone by the time Kayla showered twice—once just wasn’t enough, with her feeling as if that perp’s blood had penetrated deep into her pores. She’d scrubbed until her skin felt raw.
She laid the hair dryer aside and stared at her reflection. But was the blood really what bothered her just now? Peter Hadden’s words kept echoing in her brain. We have reason to suspect your friend Marshall is eyeball deep in a smuggling ring.
Not possible.
Rainy’s husband would never be involved with any sort of criminal activity. Not knowingly anyway.
Rainy’s husband.
Kayla looked away from the telling emotion in her eyes. She’d gotten a little too attached to Marshall these past few months. It wasn’t intentional…she hadn’t meant to allow her feelings to stray into dangerous territory. But it had been like trying to stop an avalanche. Impossible.
She’d always genuinely adored Marshall. Who wouldn’t? He was handsome, well-built, immensely charming and he had treated Rainy as if she were the absolute center of his universe. Who wouldn’t want a man like that?
No. Kayla shook off that line of thinking and retreated to her bedroom to pull on some clean clothes. It wasn’t about Marshall either. It was about Rainy.
Kayla sighed as she looked at her unmade bed. There was just never enough time. She dug through a pile of freshly laundered clothes that she hadn’t put away yet and selected her favorite jeans.
Rainy had always teased Kayla about her ability to make a place look lived-in without any real effort. That was the way Kayla preferred things—no fuss.
She tugged on her jeans. She missed Rainy so much. The hurt and tension stemming from her murder had drawn Kayla and Marshall together, that’s all. She knew better than most that stress did that sort of thing. It happened when you felt lost or detached from the rest of the world. You reached out to the closest human who might understand.
Her thoughts drifted to her final year at Athena Academy. Rainy had graduated long before and gone off to Harvard. Alex had graduated as well, one year previously. Though Kayla had loved her other Cassandra sisters, she’d missed Rainy and Alex to the point of distraction. Her Navajo heritage had tugged at her more strongly that year than any other. She’d just felt out of sorts, torn between what she’d been taught as a child and all that she’d learned at Athena.
Not that anything she’d experienced at Athena could be called bad in any way, but it had been different than the usual academic curriculum. Martial arts, weaponry, survival courses, multiple foreign languages. Too many other available studies to recall at the moment. The overall goal was the advancement and empowerment of women. All good. But somehow, in her senior year, Kayla had gotten off track, had lost some vital part of herself. In the search to regain completeness, she’d met and fallen for a cocky young officer from the Air Force base.
The image of the man she’d allowed to break her heart all those years ago flashed briefly through Kayla’s mind. Her automatic instinct was to banish any thought of him. But Josie’s call a couple weeks ago had Kayla hesitating. Josie Lockworth was a dear friend and a Cassandra, as well as a rising star in the Air Force. The same branch of the military in which Jazz’s father still served.
Mike Bridges wanted to know his daughter. Jasmine Michelle Ryan. The daughter Kayla had raised all alone. Admittedly, he had sent child support since the day Jazz was born, twelve years ago next month. And Kayla had been blessed with the full support of her family, so to say she’d done this alone wasn’t exactly accurate.
But so many times she had felt alone.
She shouldered into a sweatshirt, pulled her hair loose and began to braid it. Maybe that was part of the reason she’d been drawn to Marshall so strongly.
It had been so very long since she’d allowed herself to need a man on a personal level, much less an intimate one. Peter Hadden slipped into her troubled thoughts next. Her heart reacted instantly, picking up a few extra, foolish beats.
She couldn’t help smiling when she thought of the way he always looked a little rumpled. Sexy as hell. Totally the opposite of meticulously groomed Marshall. Peter Hadden was one of those men who made the just-dragged-out-of-bed look so appealing.
Damn him.
How many times had she longed to run her fingers through his tousled hair? To yank his rumpled suit clean off his body. To ensure that it was properly laundered and pressed, of course, she’d assured herself.
Yeah, right.
And those eyes. Amazing, she admitted, allowing the momentary lapse in sanity while no one was around to notice. But it was that damned smile that got to her the fastest. Sexy, flirty, and so warm. No, not warm. Hot.
And even more than that, she found his dogged persistence dangerously tempting. No matter how often she pushed him away, he kept coming back. You had to love a guy who didn’t give up.
Why couldn’t she simply enjoy him? Her fingers faltered in their work as she secured the end of her waist-long braid. Good question. She was twenty-nine. She’d scarcely even dated since Jazz became a part of her life. What prevented her from having a no-strings physical relationship with a man?
Warmth spread down her limbs at the concept.
Mike popped back into her head. Because her life was complicated enough.
She’d fallen for a sexy smile and amazing eyes once before. Though Mike’s were hazel, the same combination of green and blue that Jazz had inherited, the effect was the same. He’d turned Kayla inside out with just a look.
Maybe it was past time she’d allowed a man back into her life. Didn’t her own mother and sister broach that very subject now and again? Like clockwork.
Still, now was not the time. Until those behind Rainy’s murder and the fate of her offspring were solved, getting involved with anyone was out of the question. Especially considering this latest turn of events where Hadden was concerned. Kayla owed it to Marshall to protect him.
No. She owed it to Rainy.
Rainy had loved Marshall. Kayla would protect him for that very reason if for no other.
She walked over to her bedside table and picked up the framed photograph of her precious daughter. Jazz had the same long dark hair as Kayla, the same features. Only the color of her eyes had made it from her father’s side of the gene pool. No fancy Ivy League college or high-powered career could have made Kayla’s life more complete. Like all Athena graduates she had received a scholarship offer from a prestigious school, Princeton, in fact. But Jazz was far more