Fascination. Samantha Hunter

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СКАЧАТЬ was little. That’s when she’d met Ray. He’d become a good friend and a sort of honorary uncle.

      She’d continued to come by at least once a week until her arrest. The eighteen months at the beginning of her sentence, when she had been confined to home arrest, had been the hardest of her life for many reasons, but one of those was because she never got to visit Ray.

      Helping himself to a hot dog, he sat next to her, took a bite, then spoke. “So what has you down here all dressed up, li’l girl? You should be working, huh?”

      She nodded, swiping some mustard from her chin with her pinkie and sucking it from the end of her finger. “Yeah. I took the day off. Had a job interview.”

      “Hey! Good news! You’re almost done. You have to come down here and celebrate on the day.”

      Sage smiled, but then it faded. “You bet. But free is a relative term, isn’t it, Ray? I’ve reached the end of my sentence, but I feel like it will never really be over. I can’t escape the past.” She knew she sounded sorry for herself in spades, but she couldn’t help it.

      Surprisingly Ray laughed again, and she looked up, popping the last big of dog into her mouth. He shook his head.

      “Well, you know, girl, I made my own mistakes an’ been where you are. Been in worse. You have a college degree. I never had none of that, but it’s no matter. We can do whatever we want. We make our own luck.”

      “Easier said than done.”

      “Depends on what you tryin’ to do, don’t it? You just gotta find the right thing, that’s all.” He cleared his throat and patted her arm. “Don’t worry too much. I had a hard time, too, when I got out. People’ll forget, it just takes a while. I kept at it, got enough odd jobs to get myself a cart and found myself a spot to sell lunch. Before you know it I had this stand, right here in this pretty park. No one else is allowed to have their stands here, the city said, just me. The mayor himself. Imagine that.”

      Sage smiled and nodded quietly, having heard the story a thousand times. She always enjoyed how Ray’s face lit up with pride when he told it. But he’d only told her about his time in jail after she’d been arrested and become too ashamed to come around to see him. So he’d come to see her and told her he understood.

      He’d never told her why he’d been sent up, but she just knew there was no way this gentle man had ever hurt anyone or anything. She never asked. He never judged, so she didn’t either.

      “I just want a normal life, Ray. A good job. You know, the regular stuff.”

      “Mebbe you aren’t cut out for regular, missy. You’re special. You just have to find your place. Just don’t plan on coming down here and tryin’ to edge old Ray out with your own stand.” He laughed again, and she couldn’t help but join in.

      “No worries there, Ray. I wouldn’t even try to compete with you. Everyone knows you’re the best.”

      She threw her arms around him in a tight hug. Looking past his shoulder, she stiffened suddenly, her eyes widening as she saw a familiar figure coming into view.

      Locke stood at the edge of the park, watching her. She hadn’t seen him since before her arrest. She thought she might be seeing things and blinked, but he was still there. A cold feeling spread up from the base of her spine. Slipping out of Ray’s hug, she studied Locke, her heart in her throat. What was he doing here? Why now?

      IAN LIFTED A STEAMING cup of coffee to his lips as he reviewed Sarah Jessup’s résumé and his interview notes from the previous day. He believed he might be looking at the first new member of his team.

      True, her formal qualifications were a little light, but she could talk the talk and she was more than a little interested. There were lots of people out there with the right education, the right experience, but she had passion. There was a sharpness, an electricity about her that he liked. She knew computers inside and out and she was a born cop whether she knew it or not. He’d wondered why she never pursued a career in law enforcement and had to suppress a grin when she’d told him she’d thought about it but didn’t like the uniforms. She’d been relieved to know the HotWires weren’t required to wear them.

      The lady had talent, but she also had secrets. He had seen the slightest flicker in her eyes when he’d mentioned doing a background check. When he’d asked her if there was anything she needed to tell him about, she’d closed up like a clam. He would have to see what that was about before hiring her, but he trusted his gut that she was one of the people he was looking for.

      There was also no denying that she was, as Marty had made a fool out of himself noticing, pretty damned hot—a fact that left Ian cold. He couldn’t drum up an even mildly sexual thought about Sarah Jessup, whose ample curves and chocolate-brown hair should have at least inspired one. This was doubly annoying because his mind kept wandering back to Sage’s silky copper curls.

      Ian couldn’t seem to get Sage out of his head. He didn’t like being distracted, and that fact urged him to either get the hell away from her or to take her up on what she was offering, to get her out of his system. He was dangerously close to the latter. What would she do if he did? How would she react? Was it all an act on her part or did she really desire him?

      He slammed on the mental brakes. No sense going there. He’d gotten out of his office thinking a change of venue would freshen his mind and help him concentrate, but thoughts of Sage followed him wherever he went. It was well and good that it was almost over. Four more days.

      He’d taken his laptop and set up at a table in a local waterfront coffee shop for the afternoon. It was a perk that he could avoid the office when he wanted to. He watched groups of tourists file out of the tour boats. A large cruise ship was moored in the background. Even from a distance the ship appeared enormous. His parents took several cruises each year, but he’d never been on one, preferring to spend his weeks off fishing with his brothers at their camp in Maine.

      His mom and dad had both been career Navy until they’d retired the year before last. His dad had been a commander who had worked on submarines since he was seventeen; he’d spent the last twenty years as captain of his own boat. Ian’s mom had been a nurse who’d eventually found her way onto the big ships, as well. And now they took their vacations on boats. Ian didn’t understand it, but to each their own.

      He sighed, realizing he wouldn’t be taking another vacation for a while. He should contact his brothers—Jim, who was older, and Gabe, who was younger—and see if they could at least grab a weekend sometime soon before all of his time got sucked up by getting the new team up and running. Squinting out the window, his gaze gravitated toward someone too familiar.

      Sage.

      She was standing with the hot-dog-stand guy she visited every week. At this time of day, though, he would have expected her to be at work. He made a mental note to check out why she wasn’t.

      The old guy, Ray, had been convicted on charges of bank robbery back in the sixties, but from what Ian could tell when he’d read over the case, it had been a bad bust. Ray had been hung out to dry more or less because he was convenient—caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. There wouldn’t have been much interest in finding justice for a poor black man back then. Sage seemed very fond of him.

      Ian couldn’t make out the look on her face, but he saw her hug Ray and then slowly move past him to stand on the edge of the walk, her attention focused across the street. She was staring at a man, not far from where Ian himself sat СКАЧАТЬ