Secrets Rising by Sally Berneathy Read Free Book Online

threatening phone calls when you're looking for somebody's birth parents?" Her voice sounded so small he half expected to find she'd shrunk to the size of a child.
    He yanked one of his denim shirts from a hanger and returned to find she hadn't shrunk at all. She was still tall and elegant, though she now had her arms wrapped self-consciously about herself.
    He held the shirt toward her, and she turned, sliding her arms into the sleeves, hiding the sleek curves of her body. But the damage was done. He remembered only too well what she looked like without the shirt.
    He stood motionless behind her, paralyzed by her nearness, the faint scents of summer flowers and sleep that wafted from her while she fumbled with the buttons. It would be so easy to wrap his arms around her, pull her to him, murmur soothing, meaningless words in her ear.
    And take advantage of her helplessness, her neediness? No, even he had a few rules...like never playing the game with someone who didn't know the score beforehand.
    She curled in the chair, looking up at him, her eyes full of pain and fear. "Do you?" she asked, and for a minute he thought she was referring to his self-imposed rules, asking if he really had the strength to ignore his desire for her.
    "Do I?" Then he remembered her unanswered question. He cleared his throat. "No. Threatening phone calls are not typical for this sort of case. Do you want something to drink?"
    She clutched the shirt tightly and nodded. He headed to the bathroom, the trip really an excuse to take himself away from her physical presence, to get his libido under control. "Sorry I can't offer you anything but tap water. These rooms don't come equipped with a mini bar."
    "Water's fine."
    When he returned, she seemed to have regained some of her composure, though her eyes were unusually bright and her skin extremely pale. She accepted the glass as graciously as if it were a crystal snifter of aged brandy. "Thank you."
    He sat on the edge of the bed. If these meetings kept up, he was going to have to get another chair in here. Sitting on the unmade, rumpled bed put too many ideas in his head.
    "All right, now tell me exactly what happened, what this caller said."
    "I answered the phone." She hesitated, biting her lower lip.
    "It's not unusual to have trouble recalling exactly what happened in a stressful situation. Just tell me what you remember."
    She shook her head, the movement abrupt and jerky. "I remember every word. Go away. Go back home and forget about finding your mother. She's dead and if you keep looking, you'll end up that way, too. "
    "Was the caller a man or a woman?"
    She shook her head again, more slowly this time, allowing the shadows in her pale hair to shift in the harsh light from the lamp hanging above the table. "I don't know. The voice was muffled and I was half asleep. It could have been either."
    "Any chance it might be our friend, the Mayor?"
    "It's possible. But why would he do that? Why would anybody do something like that?"
    "Most threatening phone calls are bluffs. It's pretty far-fetched to think somebody might want to kill you just because you're trying to find your birth mother."
    She studied him silently for a moment. "So you're saying somebody is using empty threats to scare me into leaving before I find her."
    He nodded. "That'd be my take on the situation."
    "They don't want to kill me. They just want me to go away."
    He nodded a second time.
    "Why?"
    "We haven't found the answer to that yet, but it would seem somebody doesn't want you to find your mother."
    "Or my mother doesn't want to be found. If the caller was lying, if she's not really dead, that could have been her on the phone."
    She sat with her legs curled under her, his shirt pulled around her knees, her hands clenched in her lap. Without makeup, she lost all traces of a sophisticated veneer. She was young and vulnerable, a sapling bent to the earth by a hurricane, not strong enough to stand on her own.
    Rebecca had so much