His Secret Baby: The Agent's Secret Baby. Marie Ferrarella

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      No matter how much she wanted to.

       Chapter 10

      “This has to be, by far, the best Thanksgiving turkey I’ve ever eaten,” Lucas told Eve as he consumed the last bite of his dinner. Josiah’s tall, muscular driver had the uncanny ability to appear both enthusiastic and quiet at the same time.

      At first, when Eve had extended the invitation to join them at the table, the man had demurred, assuring her that he was fine with waiting for Josiah in the car. He’d held up the mystery he was currently reading and said that he would have an instrumental CD playing on the Mercedes’s sound system.

      When she’d pressed him as to what he intended to eat while they were inside, consuming a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, he’d produced a couple of those breakfast energy bars that boasted of having chocolate and raspberries in its mix.

      Shaking her head, Eve had confiscated the bars, telling him that there was no way he was going to sit in her driveway gnawing on hardened granola, especially not on Thanksgiving.

      Observing the exchange, Josiah had chuckled drily. “I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you, Lucas,” he’d told his driver. “I know for a fact that Dr. Eve can be a very stubborn young woman when she wants to be.”

      Listening, Adam had laughed. “Now there’s an understatement if I’ve ever heard one. But he’s right, you know,” he went on to tell Josiah’s driver. “She’s going to keep after you until you give up. Might as well not let the turkey get cold and just give in.”

      He didn’t appear to be the type who liked stirring things up. Lucas capitulated. Coming inside, he’d sat down at the dining-room table, taking a seat next to Josiah. When presented with the meal, he had eaten with gusto, consuming a great deal more than the man he had been chauffeuring around, plus the other two people at the table, as well.

      Retiring his utensils, Josiah delicately wiped his mouth and added his voice to the praise. “Yes.” He smiled at Eve warmly. “My compliments to the chef.”

      “Thank you,” she replied, more than a little pleased. “But I really can’t take all the credit,” she protested in the next breath. “Dinner wouldn’t have been ready at all if Adam hadn’t helped.”

      His words belied the intense look in his eyes as Josiah regarded Eve’s “helper.” “Well, then it was an excellent collaboration. I highly approve.” He patted what was still a very flat stomach. “I’m afraid that I am too full to move.”

      “Then stay. Stay as long as you like,” she encouraged. She looked at Lucas. Her invitation was to both men. “I give you my word, no one’s going to chase you out.”

      As she spoke, she rose to her feet and reached for Josiah’s plate, intent on clearing away the dishes. Lucas was on his feet immediately. For a large man, he moved with impressive agility. He took the dish away from her and began piling the other plates on top of it.

      “The least I can do after that fantastic meal is to clear the table for you and do the dishes,” Lucas told her.

      “Dishes don’t need doing, Lucas. That’s why God created dishwashers,” she answered.

      “Well, I can at least get them from here to there,” he told her, piling the utensils on the top dish.

      Beneath that polite exterior, she had a feeling that Lucas was as quietly determined to do the right thing as she was. She gave up trying to dissuade him.

      Inclining her head, she politely accepted his offer. “Thank you.”

      Josiah took advantage to the temporary break in the conversation. He leaned forward, his eyes on Adam’s. “So tell me, Adam, if you don’t mind my asking, how do you like doing business down here?”

      The man wasn’t mildly curious, he was digging, Adam thought. Why?

      “I like it,” he said casually, as if he wasn’t aware that the older man was placing him under a microscope. “The weather’s nicer down here, the people friendlier.”

      “I see.”

      Ordinarily, he would have attributed Josiah’s fishing to his needing to act as Eve’s surrogate father. But something about the way the other man looked at him made Adam rethink this simple conclusion. Maybe the job was really getting him paranoid.

      “Is there much money in bookstores these days?” Josiah asked.

      “There is in the kinds of books Adam deals in,” Eve told the older man. Something unnamed and protective had risen up inside of her.

      As if Adam needed protectors, she quietly jeered.

      “Still dealing in rare first editions, then?” Josiah asked, his eyebrows raised in query.

      “Yes.”

      “And how is that done, exactly? Where do you find these treasures?” Josiah wanted to know.

      Definitely grilling him, Adam thought. “I go to estate sales. You’d be surprised what you can find if you look hard enough,” Adam replied.

      “I’m sure I would be,” Josiah agreed thoughtfully. He glanced toward the kitchen where Lucas was rinsing off plates and stacking them into the dishwasher. “My driver has an affinity for murder-mystery books. Would you by any chance have a first edition of an Agatha Christie book?” he asked, then became more specific in his choice. “The Mousetrap.”

      Adam chuckled. He had just had a mousetrap set for him. Lucky thing he had minored in English in college while working on his degree in criminology.

      “The Mousetrap,” he informed Josiah needlessly, “was a play, not a book.”

      The older man seemed properly embarrassed. “Ah, my error.” His expression slowly turned hopeful. “Perhaps one of her other efforts?”

      As it turned out, he actually had something to sell to Josiah—if the man wanted to continue with the charade. “I have The Man in the Brown Suit.”

      “Excellent,” Josiah declared with just the right amount of enthusiasm. “If you give me the address to your shop, I’ll make a point of stopping by next Wednesday. Christmas is coming, you know.”

      “It usually does after Thanksgiving,” Adam commented drily. He reached into his pocket and took out his wallet. In the interest of maintaining his cover, he carried several business cards with him at all times and offered one to the other man.

      Taking the card, Josiah studied it for a moment before tucking it into his own pocket. “Next Wednesday,” he repeated.

      “I’ll be looking forward to it,” Adam told him.

      The old man was up to something. He would bet his last dollar on it. But what? That was the part that didn’t make sense. Could it just be that the man was looking out for Eve? Or was there something else involved?

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