Free Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (v1.2) by Kasey Michaels Page A

kidnapped.”
    Quinn stopped pacing, considered this for a moment, then retrieved the faxed note from Grady’s desktop. The fax had arrived an hour earlier, more than twenty-four hours after the Taites had discovered Shelby’s disappearance. It was short, and more than a little obscure:
    Don’t worry about me, Somerton. I just felt a need to be by myself for a few weeks. Uncle Alfred understands and will explain. Please, Somerton, let me do this. I need to do this.
    “Call it a wild hunch, Grady, but I’d say she wasn’t kidnapped. She’s just gone AWOL. Did anyone talk to Uncle Lush?” he said, replacing the note. Not that he cared, not that he was interested. So the Taite heiress did a flit. So what. Maybe she’d get lucky, come back with a little bit of life sparking in those empty brown eyes. Those lovely, perhaps sad brown eyes. Damn. He’d always been such a sucker for sad eyes.
    Grady told his secretary to enter when she knocked, then sat forward, saying, “Yeah, Somerton told me he talked to the uncle. He said something about Shelby wanting to find out how the other half lives, be normal, and make herself a few memories. You know, all that stuff that sounds so good in theory, then hits the fan in a big way when someone like our pampered runaway hits the real world and it hits back, hard. So yes, I agree, Quinn. She’s run away from home, and now she’s a target for any nut out there. Or do you really think this woman knows the first thing about survival outside of her expensive glass bubble? She’s a babe in the woods, Quinn, a rich, pampered, spoiled, probably clueless and most definitely exploitable babe in a big, dangerous woods. If we both know nothing else, we know that the rich need keepers like us. What is it, Ruth?”
    “The Taites are here, boys,” she told them, then pulled a face. “And a Mr. Parker Something-or-other the Third. That one’s really got his shorts in a twist, let me tell you. You want I should show them in? Oh, and it might be a good idea to keep your discussion a little under the shouting match you’ve been at for the past ten minutes. These walls are thick, but they aren’t soundproof.”
    “Quinn?” Grady asked, looking up at his partner, noting the thundercloud expression in his friend’s eyes. Smiling as he saw that his last words had hit home. Quinn had two dogs, mostly because he couldn’t say no to a pair of sad eyes. And if Grady knew nothing else, he knew the sad look he’d seen in Shelby Taite’s brown eyes the last few times he’d guarded her.
    Quinn could ignore physical beauty. He could ignore wealth and position, and usually did so, with a vengeance. But he never could pass on a pair of soulful brown eyes. In fact, if Shelby Taite had four legs and a tail, Quinn would have been on the job an hour ago. “So, partner? What do we do? Send them away, lose a cushy account and probably a dozen more once Somerton tells his friends how unhelpful we’ve been? Let that poor, helpless little rich girl fend for herself out there in the big, bad world?”
    “Oh, shut up,” Quinn gritted out, then waved in Ruth’s general direction, so that she retreated to the waiting area to gather up the Takes and the fiance.
    The Taite menagerie didn’t just walk into a room; they made an entrance, sailing into Grady’s office like a small fleet of very expensive sailboats with the wind at their backs.
    Somerton Taite entered first, his rather prissy walk still filled with determination, although his pinched features showed obvious signs of distress and probably a sleepless night. He was followed hard by a shuffling Jeremy Rifkin, whose eyes were suspiciously red as he held a large white handkerchief to his mouth, stifling a sob. Somerton immediately led his friend to a chair, patted his shoulder.
    Quinn waited for him to say, “Sit; stay,” but it didn’t happen.
    Uncle Alfred seemed to have lost his rudder, as his progress into the office was far less direct,