She would not bring her maelstrom back into his world.

  He’d rather live without love than get sucked into that tornado a second time.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Paul.” Her voice sounded thick. Like her mouth was dry. Or she’d been crying.

  He still said nothing.

  “I’ve been to the police. They’ve done what they can, but it didn’t help...”

  The police?

  She was in trouble?

  He sat up straighter.

  “Jeanine agreed that I should call you.”

  The comment might have come off as manipulative, except that he knew how much Jeanine Harbor had grown to hate him. Haley had to be in real trouble if Jeanine had told her to call.

  Haley’s troubles weren’t his problem anymore.

  “You still there?”

  Sort of. But he didn’t want to be.

  And heard the beep signaling the dropped call before he’d had the chance to hang up.

  Chapter 2

  Ten minutes into agitated pacing, ten minutes after she’d hung up on her ex-husband’s silence, Haley jerked as her phone rang. Almost dropped the thing she still held in her hand.

  She should have gone in to work instead of calling off.

  Yeah, she had so much paid time off accumulated that the powers that be had been after her for some time to use a bit of it, but work was what cured her.

  Always.

  Caring for others, particularly for children who didn’t feel well, made her her best self.

  Thinking maybe her friend had woken up and was checking on her, she lifted the phone. And almost dropped it again when she saw the number.

  Her most recently called.

  “Hello?” There might have been a bit of petulance in her tone. She couldn’t tell. Didn’t much care. He’d been rude.

  She didn’t blame him.

  And she had bigger fish to fry.

  “I apologize.”

  He didn’t say what for. She didn’t ask. “Accepted.”

  “Why did you need to speak with me?”

  It had been eight years since they’d spoken. And not even a how are you?

  “I need your professional help.”

  “I assumed as much. Tell me what’s going on.”

  I assumed as much. After he’d had a few minutes to recover from the shock and had actually put his brain in gear.

  Again, she wasn’t going to blame him. He was who he was, and didn’t often venture into emotional territory. Rather, he avoided it at a lot of cost. It had always been like that with them, and a major reason why they hadn’t worked as a couple.

  “My sister, Kelsey, died.” As though she had more than one. There’d only been the one. And she doubted Paul would ever forget her name.

  Or the fact that Haley’s dedication to her dramatic sister had been a terminal sore spot between them.

  He’d be sitting there thinking that nothing had changed.

  Didn’t matter what he thought.

  As long as he helped her.

  “Did you say Kelsey’s dead?” His tone had softened, so much so that she had to strain to hear him.

  “Yes.” She couldn’t dwell on that part. Not at the moment. The arrangements had been made, the funeral was over, she was back to work and the rest of the grief process would happen whether she was ready for it or not.

  “When?”

  “A few weeks ago.”

  A few weeks was an unbearably long time in the life of a misplaced newborn. Who knew if the child, if it existed, would even still be alive?

  But would someone have left a note just the day before if it wasn’t?

  “I’m so sorry, Haley. Seriously. I was an ass, as usual, and...” His tone. It went straight for the heart of her.

  Paul.

  “No. It’s okay. You had no idea. And that’s not why I called.” She paused and then ran on with, “Well, it is, in part, but her death isn’t what this is about.”

  She didn’t want his sympathy. Couldn’t allow any emotions between them. It had to be strictly business. And so she rushed on, telling him about the note on her door, what it said and what the police had said, ending with, “I want to hire you, Paul. I need you to do what you do and find that baby.”

  “If there is one.”

  “Right. And if not, then hopefully you’ll find who left the note and why...” He was an elite brand of bounty hunter, investigator and money collector all rolled into one. A skip tracer. Someone who specialized in finding the impossible to find. “Are you executor and beneficiary of her estate? Do you have the means to fax me permission to access her credit report and bank and credit card statements?”

  The sound of his voice spread through her with a familiarity she hadn’t expected. “Yes.”

  He was good. So good he’d been hired by a nationally renowned firm of experts. And she was shaking at the knees. “I was planning to call Sierra’s Web to hire you, but thought I should give you a heads-up first, before you see the job order come through.” She needed to get things back under control. Her control.

  “You don’t need to hire me. Of course, I’ll help.”

  Sirens went off inside her.

  “No, really, I do need to make this official. Either we go through Sierra’s Web, or...”

  What?

  She’d let the baby remain in the wrong hands?

  If there were any.

  Not even knowing how those hands were wrong. Were they abusive? Or just not the right ones?

  The line hung with silence. He didn’t ask her, “Or what?” and she didn’t back down.

  “You’re right, and, again, I apologize. But you don’t need to call the firm,” he told her. “I’ll report the job and make it official.”

  The air, and every ounce of strength she’d mustered to deal with him, left her body. Sinking down to her couch, Haley stared at the tightly woven wool throw covering the tile under her coffee table. “Thank you.”

  She’d known he’d come through for her.

  Now every part of her body ached—though some of that could be due to the sleepless night she’d spent, worrying about her possible niece or nephew, crying for Kelsey and...needing Paul.

  Only to help her find answers.

  She promised herself she would only need his professional skills. The rest...dealing with whatever she found...that would be solely on her.

  Separate and apart from him.

  There would be no drama entering his life through her.

  She was going through his firm of experts to hire his services and it would all be just business.

  * * *

  Paul put in a call to his buddy Hudson Warner, one of the six Sierra’s Web founding partners. He let Hudson know that he had a new job—even if he didn’t mention that their new client was his ex-wife—and then went to work.

  If all went well, he could be unemployed again by morning, and able to take the yacht out for some fishing and R & R. He’d been planning the time off since April, had already put if off twice, thought maybe he’d head down to Catalina where he knew some people and actually had a bag packed this time. A rich guy like him never had to work hard to find people to relax with him.

  He’d only ever found one person who’d fight with him.

  And as much as he’d loved Haley, he’d hated the fighting. The emotional vulnerability.

  The rest...never knowing if someone was with him because of him, or because he came with inherited family money...he’d come to terms with all that. Accepted it as the shadow side of a good life.

  And he had a good life.

  Not following in his father’s globe-trotting playboy lifestyle, but actually using his mind, his talent, to contribute to society. While enjoying the peace provided by comfortable living.

  He didn’t need Haley coming back into the picture and messing him up again.

  Which logically led to the conclusion that he had to get rid of her as quickly as possible. By using his mind, his talents, to find out what in the hell Kelsey had gotten herself into for one last time.

  Hands suspended over the keyboard at the mammoth cherry desk in office, he felt a pang. Wasn’t sure what it was at first, but was suddenly consumed by a long-ago memory. One he hadn’t accessed in...ever.

  His wedding reception. While Haley had been cutting in so her mother and his father, who’d just met, didn’t make fools of themselves drooling all over each other on the dance floor, Kelsey had wrapped her arms loosely around his middle and pulled him into motion before he had a chance to say no. Their little swaying to music hadn’t lasted but a few seconds. Just long enough for Kelsey to lean in and tell him that he better never hurt her big sister because Haley was different and truly special. For the only time in the four years he’d known her, Kelsey’s tone had been deadly serious.

  And then she’d actually pushed him away, flitting off to try to snag any one of the rich friends he’d invited to the party.

  Just as her mother had snagged his father...

  And as Haley had lassoed him? At least, a little bit? Subconsciously? He couldn’t blame her for gravitating toward money, having grown up as she had, moving in and out of fancy mansions as her mother moved in and out of relationships and marriages when limits were put on the spending or finances took a nosedive. Kelsey and Haley had learned in the cradle that the way to provide security and a good life was to snag a rich partner...

  An hour after he’d opened his search, Paul’s mood, his momentum and his plans for a cruise took a major downward turn. He’d unearthed over a hundred pages of Kelsey information during that time—down to the exclusive lingerie shop she purchased from frequently—all dating prior to a year before her death. And in that last year...nothing. The kind of nothing that took a lot of money, greased hands and powerful people to produce.

  The kind that always, always, always spelled trouble.

  And greatly increased the possibility that there could be a baby in wrong hands. Or, at the very least, that someone was luring Haley into danger.

  He skimmed through the pages a second time, his gut hard as a rock inside, instinct pushing him to act sooner rather than later.

  And the way to do that was to get someone who knew Kelsey, who’d been in contact with her, to look over what he had and see if anything jumped out as more meaningful than something else. If anything was different than Kelsey’s norm he’d have a more immediate starting place.

  Even just a restaurant visit to a place known for food she didn’t like.

  He could find the information himself. Eventually.

  A possible baby in danger didn’t give him eventually to work with.

  He needed Haley.

  In his office.

  As soon as possible.

  * * *

  The drive from Santa Barbara to Mission Viejo was an exercise in self-discipline. Controlling her thoughts had been a habit ingrained from the time she was old enough to understand that her mother’s reasoning didn’t always make sense. She’d been four at the time. And noticing that her mother’s take on the breakup of her marriage to newborn Kelsey’s father—her retelling of circumstances—wasn’t actually as it’d happened. Dale hadn’t slapped her. He’d swung his hand in a slapping motion in front of his own nose. As though swatting her away.

  She had no memory of the rest of what went on there. Just remembered so clearly that slap versus hand swat. It hadn’t been easy for a little girl being uprooted from the home she loved to also realize that her mother wasn’t completely right.

  And it wasn’t easy driving herself into the tragedy of her own past, either.

  So she focused on the conversation she’d had with the Emergency Department director, saying only that, with her sister’s death, she needed some time off. Kathy couldn’t have been nicer. Or more supportive.

  That kindness was welcome. And brought with it a wave of calm that got her half a mile farther along the three-hour drive on the busy Friday night California freeway.

  She moved from there to another reassessment of the bag she’d packed. Paul had said something about perhaps traveling to Vegas yet that night or early in the morning, which told her that he was already onto something. And she was going to go with him. She’d made up her mind about that.

  Vegas. A place they’d been together once before—to celebrate their first anniversary. They’d both found the place too frenetic and ended up driving across the desert to a secluded beach Paul had known about. He’d had someone meet them there with his yacht. A friend who’d then driven their car back to Santa Barbara while she and Paul had spent an idyllic three days all alone in the world...

  No.

  She whipped her thoughts back to the bag she’d packed. Had she remembered deodorant? Her makeup bag was easy. She’d pulled it out of the drawer in her bathroom and thrown it in.

  Maybe he’d found where Kelsey had been living. Maybe she’d be able to bring home her sister’s things.

  Kelsey’s wardrobe choices had been very different from hers. The clothes Haley had just packed could attest to that. Shorts, shirts and underwear, with a pair of jeans just in case. Kelsey would have sun dresses, heeled sandals, a black low cut cocktail dress, and never, ever jeans.

  Haley had thrown in three days’ worth of changes. Paul had only asked her to look over the report he’d put together, to see if anything jumped out at her, but if he had an actual lead she was going to fight tooth and nail to go with him.

  She’d packed her toothbrush. Oh. Had she remembered toothpaste? She was pretty sure she had. She could always pick some up if necessary.

  And...

  In less than an hour, she’d be seeing Paul for the first time since their divorce.

  It had been eight years. Four times as long as their two-year union.

  When it came to marriage, she’d apparently been far more like her mother and sister than she’d ever known. Two years was also the exact length of Gloria’s relationship with Haley’s father—who’d paid child support but had publicly claimed she wasn’t his daughter—and also the amount of time Gloria’s marriage to Dale, Kelsey’s father, had lasted.

  Yeah, so, she wasn’t marrying again. That’s how Haley took care of that similarity. While she adored her mother and sister, she was not going to be like them. Multiple men, relationships...and for Gloria, multiple marriages, too.

  Not that she was all that eager to take after her irresponsible, philandering father, either. The man had fooled around with Gloria and then denied his own flesh and blood in order to keep his marriage—and his comfortable lifestyle—intact. The money had largely been his wife’s.

  Yet...he was still married to the same woman.

  That said something.

  She wasn’t sure what...but it was something.

  All the years of her growing up she’d promised herself that she’d only marry once. That the marriage would last until death did them part.

  She’d been so certain of herself, that she’d have risked her life on the longevity of the vows she and Paul had taken.

  But even so, she’d begun doubting them the night of their wedding when she’d overheard his groomsmen, his loyal-to-the-death entourage, giving them six months max. And less than that before Paul started fooling around on the side. More than just that overheard conversation had fed the doubts. Her mother and Kelsey, while encouraging the wedding in full force, had also warned her, several times, about getting so deeply committed emotionally to the man. They’d worried about her being heartbroken. Had constantly tried to school her on holding back a part of herself so she’d have something left if the marriage ended. Had called her out on instances where she was getting too far in with Paul. Added to that was his self-confessed penchant for relationships that went nowhere—for both participants. He’d been shocked, he’d said, at the depth of his need to be with Haley, and so had asked her to marry him. And she, idiot that she was, had fallen hard for his confession.

  Fallen for the idea that someone could want her around so badly, the need had completely changed him. She’d changed him...

  Long Beach. She’d made it four exits without thinking about Paul and there she was again, getting sucked back in by the garbage stored in her brain...

  Distracted by the ringing coming in over the car’s audio system, she was relieved to see Jeanine’s name show up on the in-dash touch screen.

  She pushed the button on her steering wheel to connect the call as though jabbing for a lifeline.

  “Hey, what’s up?” If she pretended that she was fine, would it become so?

  “Oh, my God, Haley...there was just someone at your house!” Jeanine’s normally placid tone was now anything but. Which had Haley quickly taking the exit so she could stop the car.

  “Are you okay?” Heart pounding, she asked the question first on her mind.

  “Yeah. I’m fine. I was actually just heading out for some ice cream when I saw him sitting there, all hunched half hidden in the bushes at the side of your front step...”

  Jeanine didn’t sound fine. Her friend was clearly agitated. Which fed the panic Haley was trying to hold at bay. “Him?”

  “Yeah, he was wearing a dark gray hoodie, so I couldn’t really tell, but when he saw me he jumped up and ran around the side of the house and I followed him...”

  “Oh, God, J, really? You chased a stranger in the dark?” Her voice, filled with fear-driven condemnation, rose several decibels. “You could have been killed!”

  In spite of all of her efforts, life was spiraling out of control and she didn’t know how to stop it. “Stop watching my house. Right now,” she said, feeling helpless. Weak.

  Ineffective.

  And scared out of her wits.

  “I’m fine, Haley.”

  “Are you inside now? With the doors locked?”