Free State Secrets by Linda Lael Miller Page A

think about besides David Goddard and all the wonderful, terrible things that could come of allowing him into her life.
    As the small airplane glided and dipped and roared overhead in a perfect circle, following the commands Holly gave it with her handset, Toby and David both applauded. Privately, she was surprised that she hadn’t sent the thing crashing into a tree; her fingers wouldn’t stop shaking.
    Finally the morning ended; it was time to take Toby home, give him lunch and let him have a few quiet minutes before driving him to the Coliseum, where he would join his classmates for the afternoon performance of the Ice Capades.
    Leading Toby toward her car, she glanced uncertainly at David. What would happen now? Did he want to talk? Would he just leave, or would there be a renewal of the dangerous attraction that seemed to be sweeping them together?
    Holly felt stiff, almost formal. Walk away and don’tlook back! screamed her mind. This man is dangerous! But her heart said something entirely different. “We enjoyed seeing you again,” she ventured aloud.
    David’s lips curved into a half grin, one that said he understood her feelings because they so closely paralleled his own, but his blue eyes were sad. “Toby will be busy this afternoon?” he asked evenly.
    “I’m going to the Ice Capades!” the little boy crowed before Holly could assemble a polite answer.
    David’s indigo gaze touched the child with real affection, then sliced back to Holly’s face. “I need to talk with you, Holly,” he said quietly. “To be with you. Will you have lunch with me?”
    “Sure she will!” Toby announced with loud confidence, scrambling into the back seat of Holly’s car, setting his airplane and handset on the seat and buckling himself into the seat belt.
    David laughed, but that quiet ache was still visible in his eyes. “Please,” he said.
    Holly swallowed hard and nodded. “Shall I meet you somewhere?”
    “I’ll pick you up at your place in an hour or so, if that’s all right.”
    Holly nodded again and got into her car, busying herself with the fastening of her seat belt and the turning of the ignition key. Anything so that she didn’t have to look back and see David getting into that rented car of his, that car that didn’t suit him. She couldn’t bear the strain of wondering about him anymore, of weighing his motives all the time. No, just for this one day she was going to enjoy what she felt, without letting doubt spoil it.
    While Toby consumed soup and a sandwich, his appetite made sharp by a morning of fresh air and exercise, Holly exchanged her Saturday jeans for a pair of fitted gray slacks, her T-shirt and poncho for a classic navy blue blouse with a tie at the throat and a charcoal velvet blazer. She brushed her hair carefully and put on makeup, too, telling herself all the while that she wasn’t trying to be attractive for David, not at all. It was just that as something of a local celebrity, she had an image to maintain.
    Why she hadn’t been concerned with that image earlier in the day, when she’d gone to a public park in her oldest clothes, wearing no makeup, was a question she didn’t bother to examine.
    When she returned from dropping Toby off at the Coliseum, David was waiting in front of her house. And he was driving a different car.
    Holly parked her own Toyota in the driveway, locked it and went toward him, taking in the sleek lines of the red Camaro sitting at the curb. David got out, looking devastatingly handsome in jeans and a cream-colored bulky-knit sweater, and came around to open the car door for her.
    “What happened to the rented one?” she asked. “The brown sedan?”
    David shook his head, but he went back around the car and got in on his own side before answering. “I told you my car was being fixed, Holly. This is it.”
    Again, Holly was unsettled. This car looked and smelled so new, how could anything have been wrong with it?
    “Don’t weigh everything I say,