Free Eden's Dream by Marcia King-Gamble Page B

homing pigeon. The bonus was his ability to rent the property next door. What he hadn’t counted on was his irrational attraction to the woman. Now that attraction was sidetracking him from doing his job. He needed to concentrate, get the information he needed, and hightail it out of there before he did something stupid, like fall in love.
    Forcing Eden Sommers from his mind, Noel returned to the folders on his desk. The tick tocking grandfather clock in the corner reminded him of the hour. He’d just e-mailed a coded message to his boss, and any minute Gary should be calling.
    Even so, when the phone rang, Noel jumped. He’d never been this edgy. As images of Eden’s lovely honey-colored face clouded his vision, he reached to answer. He smiled, picturing sparks of outrage flashing from those huge brown eyes as her mother grilled her. Instinctively he knew there would be hell to pay when he heard from her again.
    Noel ignored the tug in his groin. His voice was more gravelly than ever when he answered. “Hello.”
    A man’s voice bubbled over with excitement. “Robby, man, got your message, figured I’d touch base. Your plans seem to be moving along nicely.”
    Noel squelched his disappointment and forced himself to say, “Hi, Gary. How are things on your end?”
    â€œPromising. We got a great lead today. We were able to speak to the second officer’s ex-wife. She claims he had a drinking problem. Could be she has an ax to grind, but you never know. It’s worth a shot. Claims the guy had been a functional alcoholic for more than thirty years. According to her, he’d been known to hit the bottle before reporting for duty.”
    â€œNot good. Don’t airlines have specific rules about alcohol consumption before flights? Like no drinking nine-and-a-half hours before a flight?”
    â€œI don’t know the exact number of hours—just know they do. Each airline might have a different policy.” Gary paused for a moment. “Doesn’t it make you wonder if Captain Rodney Joyner was that engineer’s drinking buddy? I mean this accident hasn’t made a whole lot of sense so far. The only plausible explanation for experienced pilots to have a plane practically fall out of the sky is impaired judgment.”
    Grasping where this was heading, Noel drummed his fingers on the desk in front of him. His voice grew pensive. “That’s an interesting theory, Joyner having a drinking problem. Let me see what I can find out.”
    Gary chuckled derisively. Noel heard the underlying skepticism. “You’re planning on asking the Sommers woman if her man had a drinking problem?”
    â€œHardly.
    â€œThen exactly how are you going to obtain that information?”
    â€œI have my ways.”
    This time Gary snickered outright. “So it’s like that, Rob, you sly dog?”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œJoyner’s body’s not even cold and you’re screwing his fiancée.”
    His boss’s crude remark angered Noel. Gary made it sound like he was a callous dog, like he was using Eden. That he would do anything to get information, even sleep with her if that’s what it took. Not that making love to Eden wasn’t something he’d obsessed about lately. What bothered him was that Gary made her sound cheap. Obviously he didn’t know the woman. Bedding Eden Sommers would be a definite challenge.
    â€œNot that it’s any of your business, but I’m not sleeping with the woman,” Noel snapped. Then in modulated tones, he quickly added, “I’ll keep you informed if anything further develops.” He hung up.
    Too agitated now to concentrate and too upset to sleep, he went in search of a drink. He grabbed a beer from the refrigerator and deciding he needed air, wandered onto the terrace. He leaned against the railing, looking in the direction of Eden’s place. Her house was shrouded in