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CHAPTER EIGHT
HE COULDN’T STOP thinking about that picture.
The next morning, Deacon set aside his pen and leaned back in his desk chair. Although he didn’t like the invasion of privacy, that wasn’t what was eating at him. Nor was it the inflammatory headline. It wasn’t any of that stuff.
He pulled up the photo on his computer with the larger monitor. The part that he couldn’t get past was that she looked good in his arms. In fact, if he didn’t know better, he’d swear they were lovers. And he was certain that’s what anyone who caught a glimpse of the photo would think.
He scrolled down, finding there were hundreds of comments. He knew he shouldn’t read them, but he couldn’t help himself. There were, of course, mean, nasty comments, but to his surprise, there were others in support of them. They commented that sometimes love comes at the most unexpected times. Those people were all wrong—very wrong. Others said he was taking advantage of Gabrielle. That, too, was untrue. He was trying to help her, both financially, with an inflated salary, and so that she could gain her independence from her father. And it certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with love.
Deacon shut down the site. He’d read enough. He checked the time. It was almost time for him to leave for his appointment.
He moved to his bedroom to change clothes. Still, he couldn’t stop thinking about Gabrielle.
He knew she wanted answers, but he didn’t think she’d buy his amnesia story any more than the police had bought it. There had been the skeptical looks followed by the prodding questions that went on and on with the same answers. It was as if they believed that if they asked the same questions a hundred and one times, his answers would change from “I don’t remember” to something they could use against him.
In the short amount of time he’d spent with Gabrielle, he’d come to respect her. And having her upset with him for not opening up about the deadly accident was better than the look she would give him upon hearing that he couldn’t remember it. In her shoes, he probably wouldn’t believe him, either. He couldn’t bear to have her look at him as if he were a liar. He was a lot of things in life, and some of them were not so good, but he wasn’t a liar.
Maybe today he would get those elusive answers. His attorney had said he had news, but he wouldn’t say on the phone whether it was good or bad. Something told Deacon that it wasn’t good news. But he didn’t want to say anything to Gabrielle until after his meeting, when he’d hopefully have more information.
Once he left the attorney’s office, he had a doctor’s appointment, where they’d run some tests to make sure he was healing properly. The accident had done significant damage to his body. If he were to pass through the metal detectors at the airport, he’d surely set them off with his newly acquired hardware.
In the end, he’d spend most of the day in Los Angeles. He didn’t like these outings. They were fraught with the stress of being hounded by the press and wondering if the attorney and doctors would have more bad news for him.
Refusing to dwell on the unknowns awaiting him, he gathered the screenplay he’d finished reading. He was on the fence about this one. It was a mystery and he recalled Gabrielle mentioning that she enjoyed reading mysteries. He’d like to get her take on this one before he went any further. He did have a few changes he’d like to see incorporated when the screenplay was rewritten, but he’d run those past Gabrielle after he got her initial reaction.
However, when he opened the door to the office, Gabrielle wasn’t at her desk. He walked farther into the room and found the outer door slightly ajar. He dropped the stack of papers on her desk and headed out the door. Once outside, he spotted Gabrielle at the end of the walk.
Deacon called out to her, but she must not have heard him as she kept moving. She turned the corner away from the beach and the guest cottage. Where was she going?
As he followed her, the sidewalk soon became surrounded by overgrown bushes, tall grass and weeds. He frowned. To be honest, he never walked toward the front of the house. It was too close to the road for his comfort with the paparazzi lurking about.
Surely she couldn’t be enjoying a leisurely stroll through this thick vegetation, could she? He kept walking. His steps were long and quick as he hustled to catch up with her.
He turned a corner and there she was on the opposite side of the house. She stood in the shadows with a legal pad in one hand and a pen in the other. She was so intent on writing something that she didn’t appear to notice his presence.
Once he was within a few yards of her, he called out to her.
Her head jerked up.
“Oh. It’s you.” And then she flashed him a smile that filled his insides with warmth. “Good morning.”
“I stopped down
to speak with you and didn’t find you at your desk.”
She turned back to the legal pad and continued writing. “I had an idea and I needed to check it out. Now, I’m not sure how to make it work.”
An idea? Suddenly he grew uncomfortable. If he knew anything about Gabrielle, it was that she wasn’t afraid to shake things up. And the fact that she was standing in his overgrown yard making notes didn’t sit well with him.
She sent him a mischievous grin that lit up her eyes and intensified that fuzzy warm feeling in his chest. He swallowed hard. “Gabrielle, dare I ask what you have in mind?”
She glanced around. “This used to be a golf course, didn’t it?”
He glanced over the neglected grounds and a fresh wave of guilt washed over him. “At one point, it was a private course.”
“Wow.” Her gaze was glued to the lush green grounds. “How many holes?”
“Nine.” He used to spend a lot of time out here entertaining friends and associates. They said he had the best private course in the country. “But it doesn’t matter anymore.”
