The Hunt For Hawke's Daughter. Jean Barrett

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      It cost her a great deal of pain and effort to part from him, but Karen knew if she lingered in Aspen she would eventually pay an even greater price. She didn’t try to explain her departure to him. What was the point? Determined to avoid an agonizing scene, she left him as pleasantly as possible and flew back to Minneapolis where she grieved for weeks.

      And in the end she met and married the man who seemed to want everything Devlin Hawke hadn’t. Now, ironically, she was turning to Devlin to help her find that man. She was a desperate mother. There was no one else.

      “LET ME GET THIS CLEAR,” Devlin said. “You have a daughter, and you’re convinced her father has taken off with her somewhere, and you want to hire me to find them.”

      “Yes.”

      Karen, tense with expectation, waited for him to ask her Livie’s age. He didn’t, at least not then. He was silent for a moment, absorbing her information. She watched his face in the glow of the late afternoon sun that poured through the window of the plant-filled kitchen where they sat. His good-looking features registered no expression. She couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She could only pray that he wouldn’t react like Mildred Gustafsson and the police officer, that he would determine her concern was a legitimate one. She trusted him to believe her. It was why she had called him.

      “All right,” he finally said, “let’s start with some possibilities.”

      “Like what?”

      “Like supposing this is an innocent holiday.”

      “But it’s not.”

      “But if it were,” he persisted, “where would he have gone with her? Is there some favorite vacation spot, family or friends out of town they could be visiting?”

      She shook her head emphatically. “No, nothing like that. Don’t you think I would have made every effort to contact them if there were? Devlin,” she pleaded with him, “there’s something very wrong. I just know there is.”

      “Convince me,” he challenged her.

      “Michael has…well, he’s been a stranger lately.” She went on to tell him how her husband had become remote and indifferent to her and how, after repeated efforts to reach him, she had concluded that a divorce was unavoidable.

      One of Devlin’s eyebrows lifted when she mentioned her decision to part from Michael, but his only reference to it was an indirect, “Did the two of you have any major quarrel before you left for Atlanta? Couples sometimes punish each other by using the kids as weapons.”

      “No, he wasn’t angry. He was just distant. Except, underneath that detachment…”

      “What?” Devlin encouraged her.

      “I’m not sure. He was hard to read, but there could have been—oh, a kind of intenseness is the word for it, I guess. Like something was happening with him, or about to happen.”

      “Could be there’s an explanation for that. Could be that—” He broke off, tugging at his collar and glancing around the kitchen. “Do you think we could have a window open? It’s warm in here.”

      “I’m sorry. The air-conditioning doesn’t seem to be working.” Getting to her feet, she crossed to the nearest window. It resisted her effort when she tried to raise it. “It’s stuck, I’m afraid.”

      “Here, let me.” Leaving the table where they had been seated, he joined her at the window.

      She moved aside so that he could get at the sash. “It’s probably swollen shut from disuse. We never open any of the windows. It’s because of Livie,” she explained. “She has asthma. The doctor recommended filtered air in the house and no pets. Even her toys are allergen-free.”

      “Is it serious?”

      “She has had some bad attacks. None lately, thank heaven.”

      “Maybe she’s growing out of it. Kids do.”

      “How would you know that?”

      “Because I suffered from asthma myself as a kid, and I grew out of it.”

      “Oh.”

      “There.” With one sharp tug, he lifted the sash. When he turned away from the window and faced her, his expression was sober. “What I was about to say around this business of your husband’s remoteness….”

      “Yes?”

      “It doesn’t surprise me. Karen, I’ve heard this before. I heard it from his other wife. She described the same behavior occurring just before he walked out on her. And if it is a pattern, I think you have to face the fact that he may have been getting ready to leave you like he left my client in Denver.”

      “But if that’s true, why would he want Livie with him? He’s her father, yes, and he cares about her, but she’s never been vital to him.”

      “I don’t know. People living secret lives aren’t predictable. And if your husband committed bigamy, and we know he did, then he is living a secret life.”

      Karen’s shoulders sagged under the intolerable weight of a situation that was no longer just a strong possibility to her but an absolute conviction. “Dear God, he means to disappear, as he did before, and if Livie vanishes with him—Devlin, what if I never see her again? You have to find her for me!” she appealed to him urgently. “You have to promise—”

      “Easy,” he said, placing a steadying hand on her arm.

      She could feel the tears of desperation welling in her eyes, could feel herself coming apart. “I can’t bear this!”

      It was an understandable reaction when he took her in his arms and rocked her slowly in an effort to soothe her. It felt familiar, and it felt right being held against the solid, secure wall of his chest. As though she belonged there. And even when his arms tightened around her, she didn’t resist. There was nothing wrong in accepting comfort that was offered in a moment of despair. Even if there had been, how could she be unfaithful when she no longer had a husband to be faithful to?

      “You were going to ask him for a divorce,” Devlin probed, as if reading her. “That’s what you said, isn’t it?”

      “There was nothing left to save,” she murmured.

      “No doubts about your decision? No guilt?”

      “Before you told me I wasn’t legally married to Michael? Yes, I suppose then I was feeling some of both. But not now when he’s deceived me! Not after he’s taken Livie!”

      She realized too late that her fierce admission could easily be misunderstood. That Devlin could define it as a kind of invitation. Whatever the impetus, the innocent embrace turned into something intimate and dangerous.

      There was a sensual quality now in the way his splayed hands shifted against her back, his fingers stroking down her spine, then moving around her rib cage and up to the sides of her breasts. Karen felt her flesh sear under his slow caresses. She could hear his breathing quicken with his arousal, could scent his strong, masculine aroma.

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