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Colton pulled on his jeans but paused with his hand on the zipper. His little thief was almost the exact opposite of Cassie. Petite, with brown hair and eyes. She’d had full lips…full smiling lips.
What the hell had she been smiling at?
He glanced down. With a snort of annoyance, he jerked the zipper up. She could smile all she wanted; it’d been cold, dammit! He yanked on a green and black plaid flannel over his white T-shirt and stalked to the kitchen to call his boss to let him know he’d be late. He had credit cards to report stolen and a driver’s license to replace.
All the while he fumed over his damned luck.
****
Kendra braced her hands on the counter and stared critically into the mirror above the sink of the diner’s bathroom. At least her face was clean; it was a place to start. And if she concentrated on being grateful for the clear skin and dark lashes she’d inherited from her mother, it would keep her mind off her greasy ponytail and rumpled, unrecognizable designer clothes.
She sighed with resignation. Noah looked even worse. Not that she could blame him. If she hadn’t been able to keep her clothes clean over the past three days, how could she expect her little brother to?
“Focus on the positive,” she whispered. But was there any positive when one’s own brother was trying to kill you for money?
Another sigh escaped even as she realized she should be thankful she and Noah were alive.
She pulled out the picture her mother had given her in the hospital, enclosed with a letter. So many times she’d looked at it over the past two years, and the only difference she saw between herself now, and her mother then, was that her mother appeared to be happy at age twenty-four, standing next to a man Kendra now knew to be her mother’s first husband.
Her own face in the mirror reflected nothing but despair. In fact, it’d been so long since she’d been happy about anything, she didn’t remember what it felt or looked like anymore.
With a blink, she shook her head and remembered Noah still sat alone out in the restaurant. Colorado was the very last place Robert would expect her to go, but she still shouldn’t leave him by himself this long.
As she exited the bathroom, she was thankful to see his dark head still buried inside the book next to his plate. His love of reading and thirst for knowledge never ceased to amaze her.
Sliding into the booth across from him, she forced a bright smile. “Almost done?”
“Yep.” He shoveled the last forkful of pancake into his mouth, gulped the remainder of his milk, and then asked, “Aren’t you going to eat more?”
In front of her sat a plate that’d held two pieces of toast. Next to it was her empty coffee cup. She thought about how much the taxi company quoted for the ride to the address she’d given and knew the money she’d stolen would barely cover it. “I’m not really hungry,” Kendra lied.
Noah tilted his dark head. After the past few weeks, there was a wisdom in his young eyes that didn’t belong there. But he didn’t question her further.
Her heart ached for him, and she hoped she’d made the right decision. Not in leaving New York, but in where they were going now. She had no idea if the half-brother her mother had revealed in her letter would help them, or turn them away.
She gathered their meager belongings and, as they waited for the taxi, Noah asked her another question. “Ken? Do you think he’ll be nice?”
Since he’d practically read her mind, ‘he’ could only be Joel Morgan. A man neither of them had ever met. A man whom they’d only found out about after their mother died. A man who still didn’t know of their existence. Noah had asked her about him ever since they’d fled California.
Despite the reassuring arm she laid across his shoulders, she knew this was one answer she couldn’t sugarcoat. “I don’t know, Noah. I certainly hope so.?
?
He was quiet as they climbed into the taxi, and remained so as the car wound through the city streets into the mountains beyond. Kendra was thankful for his silence, until she found herself thinking back to the encounter with the towel-clad hulk on the sidewalk.
Colton Jay Lawe: blond hair, green eyes, six feet three, one hundred and ninety-five pounds. Or so the driver’s license in his wallet said. But his hair hadn’t looked blond to her, more like the color of the warm croissants her mother used to have delivered from the gourmet bakery in Manhattan. And the hair down…up on his chest…was darker, too.
Warmth infused her face. She rubbed a hand across it, looking out the window at the sun glinting off the spring leaves of the trees. Judging by the towel around his waist, he’d just showered and that’s why his hair appeared darker, because of the water.
One hundred and ninety-five pounds. That sounded like a lot when she considered her own hundred and five. But then again, he’d been tall and it certainly wasn’t like he had any fat on him—anywhere.
And then she’d smiled, of all things.
She dug her fingers into her thigh so she’d stop picturing the man. What shocked her was that she’d felt anything sexual in response to being presented with a naked man. For almost four years, ever since that night…well, she hadn’t felt much of anything besides fear and distrust for any man.
In fact, just the brief thought of the past turned her breathing shallow. She took a deep breath, then another. Discreetly applying the techniques she’d taught herself, she forced the dark thoughts and pulse-pounding fear away.
She supposed the smile had been a combined result of nervousness, fear and embarrassment. And a tiny bit of humor, she admitted. The look on his face as he stood there without his towel had been priceless.
