His glance up at her, a quirky grin, had her smiling right back at him.

  “I’ve only ever worked alone.” She found herself giving him a glimpse into her real life. “In a private studio.” One big room in a professional building a couple hours’ north of her La Jolla home, rented by Lindsay Warren. Lindsay had a little weekend getaway, a one-room apartment, a block from the building.

  Sitting there, looking up as Cole stood, Lindsay felt for a second like she was falling apart, right there in that little room.

  Her life...so clean and compartmentalized, so predictable...seemed a mass of separated pieces as she saw how she might look through the eyes of the chief of personnel of a highly reputable company.

  “I won’t keep you,” he said then, laying a key card down on her desk. “This will get you into the building when it’s locked, and give you access to the second floor, too, if you swipe it in the elevator. It’s programmed to you, so, obviously, don’t loan it out, and report it missing immediately if you lose it.”

  Feeling like she should stand—Lindsay Warren-Smythe would most definitely be standing—Lindsay sat there looking at him. Nodding.

  Wanting him to find her worthy of the trust he was placing in her. Doubting that he would if he knew why she was there.

  Ironic, considering that Lindsay Warren-Smythe was the owner of a couple of buildings whose occupants gave out key cards to their employees. And she had twenty-four-hour fingerprint access to many others.

  She was still stuck on the incident several hours later as she sat alone in her little Shelter Valley apartment. She’d left Elite shortly after Cole exited her space with a reminder that he’d pick her up at two the next day.

  Following signs in town, she’d driven out to the hiking trail winding around a smallish mountain peak on the edge of Shelter Valley. Had thought about walking it a short distance, but the oppressive heat and her flip-flops had convinced her otherwise.

  She’d walked around downtown, instead, ending up at Montford University in the center of town. Had spent time wandering the impressive campus, passed more time in the library and eventually ended up back at her apartment.

  Not having had a single conversation.

  What did Lindsay Warren, an imaginary woman, have to say?

  With questions bombarding her, she thought of Savannah, only an hour away, in Phoenix. The woman was married to her job, lived alone, just like Lindsay did, which was part of what had bonded the two in the beginning.

  Not that Savannah was ever really alone. Her partners at Sierra’s Web were as much family to her as any biologically related people Lindsay had ever known.

  Still, having had her cell phone in hand for several minutes, she dialed.

  “Everything okay?” Savannah picked up before the second ring. Of course. She was on Lindsay’s payroll at the moment, and there was the whole married-to-the-job thing.

  “This is a personal call,” she stipulated right up front.

  “Doesn’t change my question. Everything okay?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are you?”

  “The apartment.” And then, because she had apartments in other places, and was letting her mind implode on her, she added, “In Shelter Valley.”

  “You think you’ve been made?”

  “No. Just the opposite.” Hearing the distress in her voice, something that Warren-Smythe never let show, she asked, “Am I doing anything wrong here?”

  “Legally, you mean?”

  No. But, “Okay.” She trusted Savannah to have all of that covered. But maybe hearing it would snap her out of the morass into which she’d fallen.

  “You are absolutely not breaking any laws,” Savannah told her. “Lindsay Warren has been established as an artist for as long as she says she has. We got you legally set up with your LLC, and had it registered with the business bureau before you ever went to your first show. Your studio, your apartment, all rented under and paid for by the LLC. And at Elite, technically you were hired as an on-site contractor, not an employee, with monies going into Lindsay Warren, LLC.”

  Which was why she hadn’t had to provide a social security number. Her website, established four years before, her LLC registry naming Lindsay Warren as a manager, along with people with whom Lindsay Warren had done business for references, had been her credentials. A bank account number registered to the LLC was provided for payment. All neatly clean and aboveboard.

  Thanks to Savannah.

  “But you already knew all of that.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Do I need to come there and get you?”

  That snapped her back to sanity. “Of course not.”

  “So, talk.”

  “Wait, are you at dinner or anything? Am I interrupting?”

  “I’m home eating take-out Chinese and planning a candlelit hot soak in the tub with a glass of wine, some of the homemade bubbles gifted to me by Lindsay Warren, LLC and Voice of the Feminine Spirit playing in the background.”

  All of which Lindsay should have been doing.

  Would do as soon as she hung up. Minus the Chinese takeout. She’d brought home a veggie sub, purchased from the grocery deli case and paid for at self-checkout.

  “I feel like a creep, deceiving sincere people.”

  “Are you Lindsay Warren, the artist?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you suffer pangs of guilt when you’re at art shows?”

  “Never.”

  Silence hung on the line.

  Lindsay got the unspoken message hanging there.

  “I’m only at shows for a weekend, tops,” she finally said. “The people I meet are in and out of my life.”

  “What about Trevor Burnside?”

  The seventy-year-old glassblower was a wise man. Living in Canada. They’d met at a show she’d done in northern Washington State. They emailed. Often.

  “That’s different.”

  “How?”

  “He doesn’t expect any more than email. For evermore. I can deliver on that promise.”

  “So what you’re saying is that someone there is expecting more than you can deliver?”

  No. But...

  And there she was at the crux of her problem. She couldn’t wrap her mind around what would come after that but.

  “Have you promised something you can’t provide?”

  “No, of course not.” She’d get the Christmas line done. With joy. Couldn’t wait to really get started on it. Had been flowing with ideas up until Cole Bennet had shown up with the damned key card.

  Which spoke permanence.

  “We purposely brought you in as a contractor, Lins, for just this purpose. If the job hadn’t posted that way, we’d have done something else. You’re transitory.”

  The people at Elite weren’t treating her like she was.

  Cole wasn’t.

  “I was invited to a company—actually, town, too—barbecue tomorrow afternoon. At Wilson’s house.”

  “Ohhhh.”

  “What?”

  “I’d call Kelly to have a chat with you, but we don’t need an expert psychiatrist to figure this one out,” Savannah said softly, her tone filled with the compassion that she reserved for those she cared personally about. “You’re meeting your father tomorrow, Lins. You’d be more of a worry to me if you weren’t struggling tonight.”

  Made sense. Glorious, logical sense.

  “That’s what this is about?” she asked then.

  “What else could it be? You’re in a town where you know basically no one. Working with people you’ve only just met...”

  A flash of Cole Bennet’s face passed before her mind’s eye, but she let it go. Was glad to know that she could.

  Had valid reason to do so.

  Cole just stood for the specter of meeting the man who’d fathered her. He was the means by which she and Sierra’s Web were making that happen.

  Her incongruent and oddly vulnerable feelings where he was concerned were about meeting her father.

  Lindsay was already pouring her wine and reaching for her sandwich, on the way to run her bath as Savannah told her to get some rest, and to call her as soon as she was home from the barbecue the next day. Sooner if needed.

  It wasn’t until she was naked in the tub, sipping wine, when thoughts of Cole Bennet took over all mental space, that she really got it.

  He was a distraction. And a secure, safe, legal and legitimate means to finish the task she’d started.

  If she needed to entertain completely private, totally sexual fantasies of the big red-headed man to distract her from trauma coming her way, then she’d go ahead and let them occupy all her brain waves. As long as no one else knew, who was she hurting?

  Chapter Four

  Feeling the movement of warm weight away from his back, Cole awoke Saturday morning with a sense of anticipation he didn’t immediately place. The nudge at his neck brought him to full consciousness in the king-sized bed he shared every night.

  “Okay, Lillie, I’m up,” he said groggily. Cole loved living life. But he loved sleeping, too. Started to drift off again. Another nudge had him throwing back the covers and sitting up.

  Looking to the side of him, grinning, he said, “Okay, now I’m up. You satisfied?”

  The ten-year-old rough collie nudged his elbow, and he grinned. Rubbing behind her ears just as she’d taught him to do. And then she lay on the bed and kept watch as he showered, shaved and climbed into a pair of loose tan cotton shorts and pulled on one of his favorite purple tank tops. The thinnest, softest one he owned. As he slid into his flip-flops, Lillie jumped off the bed and ran to her doggy door, let herself outside into his large desert-landscaped backyard to do her business in the grassy area that had been laid just for her.

  He made his coffee. Scrambled the eggs he and Lillie shared every morning, and had hers in her bowl, mixed in with the senior dry food, by the time she came back inside. The girl had her morning routine. Alarm clock. Shower-watch duty. Her business. Check every inch of the walled-in half-acre backyard, including the entire rim of the built-in pool, and then in for breakfast.

  Cole, sitting at the granite breakfast bar in his kitchen—because the high stools let him sit comfortably with his feet touching the floor, rather than cramming his knees under the table—took his time with his own eggs, toast, oatmeal and orange juice. Conversing with Lillie, as always.

  Telling her the day’s agenda.

  Convinced that she understood enough of what he was saying to make his choice to share it with her valid. The way she sat there, cocking her head, her ears, as he spoke, paying intense intention, was proof enough for him.

  “We’ve got a party thing at Brent and Emily’s today, girl,” he told her. And would swear to the fact that she nodded once. Acknowledging her part in the day’s activities.

  She’d be the only canine family member at the event, but a lot of people would be disappointed if she wasn’t there. Since the first year he’d adopted Lillie from a puppy mill rescue, she’d been an expected companion, accompanying him even to work on many occasions.

  Motioning with his fork as he swallowed a bite of toast and egg, he continued with the most important part. “You’re going to meet someone new,” he said, his eating paused as he gave Lillie his full focus. “She’s a new hire, just moved to town, and we want her to like it here.”

  Cocking her head to the side, Lillie seemed to be waiting for more.

  “It’s not a personal thing, though,” he quickly assured her. “Not like she’ll be trespassing on our turf here. She’s doesn’t have any friends yet, so we’re going to introduce her around.” He took a bite then. A big one. Followed by a spoonful of oatmeal.

  Lillie watched.

  “She’s nice,” he said. Took another bite. Wanted more jelly on his toast and got up to get the jar. Took care of the problem.

  All under the watchful eye of one of the smartest females he’d ever known.

  And it hit him. “You might actually be able to help, you know,” he told her. “Lindsay’s a gifted artist. I’m talking talent like I’ve never seen except in museums. You don’t just see her work, you feel it.”

  The dog sat back and scratched her ear.

  Okay, he’d segued out of canine territory.

  “She’s beautiful, too,” he said, anyway. Just to get that part out of the way so he could move forward to Lillie’s part.

  “She’s afraid of something,” he said then, baldly, giving Lillie a serious look. The girl stopped scratching immediately. Sat up straight, watching him.

  Almost like she was asking him to expound on what he’d told her.

  “I don’t know what,” he said. “But you’ll know what I mean when you see her.”

  Because, true to her breed, Lillie had become an excellent service dog. Even before Cole had taken her for formal training at the program offered by the vet clinic in town. The girl sensed when someone’s heart rate increased, when they were agitated.

  And she knew how to intervene.

  Yes. It was perfect. Him picking up Lindsay Warren later that afternoon, taking her to a party to which she hadn’t actually been invited, it all made good sense.

  He was doing his part to help his new hire acclimate in an attempt to keep her happy. Happy employees were his end goal. Said so in his job description. And if that meant providing one with an afternoon under the care of a service dog who’d make her transition to Shelter Valley a more comfortable one, then so be it.

  * * *

  What did a twenty-eight-year-old woman wear to meet her father for the first time?

  The two-thousand-dollar diamond hoop earrings her grandfather bought for her when she graduated from college? Or the antique sapphire and diamond white gold necklace Mimi gave her last Christmas?

  Lindsay couldn’t wear either. The earrings were locked in her safe at home in La Jolla. And the necklace, because it had belonged to her mimi’s mimi, Lindsay’s great-great-grandmother, was in Lindsay’s vault at the bank.

  Both pieces were Warren-Smythe all the way.

  The person she desperately needed to be as she stepped onto the property of the man who’d deserted her emotionally fragile mother.

  Because, apparently, in spite of what he’d done, she was still driven to know the part of herself that had been missing all her life.

  Lindsay Warren had no standoffish clothes. Nothing that established clear boundaries.

  Something that calmed her swarming stomach would be good.

  But as Lindsay looked over the two suitcases’ worth of colorful expressive clothes—the entirety of Lindsay Warren’s wardrobe—she couldn’t find anything that calmed her, either.

  After trying on three different outfits, she settled for the fourth. A thin cotton red-and-white tie-dyed spaghetti-strap dress that hung to her ankles. She liked the soft feel of it swirling against her skin as she moved. And the red jeweled flip-flops she wore with it were her favorites.

  Three pairs of thin red metal flowers, dangling to various lengths, adorned her ears. Her hair she left loose, a shroud to hide within, protecting her.

  She’d spent the early morning hours back out at the trail she’d visited the night before, walking up the winding pavement to a railed lookout with benches. And then, still in bike shorts and crop top, had stopped at Elite headquarters to make a few sketches that had come to her during the outing.

  Fulfilling her purpose. And her promise.

  She’d eaten fruit and vegetables. Had some chamomile tea.

  And still, as she stood out in the parking lot of the apartment complex, watching for Cole’s SUV to pull in, she was a weak mass of nerves.

  Being attacked by guilt.

  Cole wasn’t just a ride to a party. Or a boss. He was different, though she couldn’t explain why or how to herself, which was why she hadn’t been able to discuss him with Savannah the night before.

  She felt like she was using him—because that’s how she knew it would appear from the outside looking in.

  And yet, she was doing nothing wrong. She’d accepted an invitation from her new boss. The fact that she took personal pleasure from time spent with him wasn’t something she could help.

  She just had to make sure that she didn’t send off vibes that gave him more than friendship pleasure.

  Even if she was curious about that “more.” A lot curious.

  He was a specter. And a distraction. He was also a very sexy living and breathing human being.

  All of her emotional edginess aside, she’d never been so instantly attracted to a man in her entire life. Trauma over meeting her father could account for her vulnerability where Cole was concerned. Her unusual sense of relating to him. No way could the trauma be responsible for increased libido.

  So, okay. She’d acknowledged the situation. Admitted it to herself. All she had to do was manage it so that Cole Bennet didn’t suffer from knowing her.

  Her thoughts stopped abruptly when she caught a brief glimpse of his SUV pulling into the parking lot before it was blocked by the buildings directly across from hers. There’d been movement in the passenger seat of the car.

  And there you have it. She wasn’t the only person Cole was taking to the party. Wouldn’t even be riding in the front seat.

  So much for needing to worry about leading him on.

  He had himself covered.

  * * *

  “Back.” Cole said the one word as he spotted Lindsay standing outside her building.

  As soon as he pulled to a stop, Lillie jumped into the rear seat.

  If the girl caught his sudden intake of breath, the way his entire being swept with a wave of anticipation, she didn’t say so. Lillie was too busy watching the gorgeous woman in her flowing dress approaching the vehicle.