Free Blue Clouds by Patricia Rice

jacket and finding what lay beneath. He hadn’t meant to approach her, but she offered major temptation to a starving man. And obviously, greed ran high on her list of priorities. He had lots of experience with scheming women. He could handle it.
    â€œWhat other services must I pay extra for, Miss Cochran?” he asked cynically, expecting her to name a price.
    Her eyes narrowed. “I think I have more than enough duties on my roster already, Mr. Wyatt. Continue looking at me like that, and I’ll remember everything I ever heard about the law against sexual harassment.”
    To Seth’s astonishment, she swung around and brushed right past him, walking out the door without another word.
    Damn, but he’d just been rejected by a hick from Nowheresville.
    That was just the inspiration he needed to create murder and mayhem.

Chapter 7
    â€œShe’s filing another custody suit, Seth,” the voice over the telephone warned. “I just received the papers this morning.”
    Seth buried his hand in his hair and pulled. “She hasn’t taken advantage of the weekends the judge granted her,” he said through clenched teeth. “What pretext can she use?”
    â€œWe’ll find that out in court, but it sounds as if she must have new evidence against you to try this stunt again. Have you taken to drinking in public, picked up a gay lover, something I need to know?”
    Seth knew Morris meant to be funny. Someone should have warned him that lawyers shouldn’t tell jokes. Swinging around, he stared out the window at the front lawn. He’d seen the red Mazda spin up the drive half an hour earlier. He’d heard Chad’s howls of rage halt shortly thereafter. He hadn’t seen any sign of his new assistant arriving at her desk, but his gratitude for the silence had put him in a lenient frame of mind. He bit down on his pencil now as giggles floated through the hall outside.
    â€œI don’t even leave Chad with a baby-sitter, for pity’s sake. Listen to me! I don’t even swear anymore. I gave up smoking. I don’t drink. I’m with my son more than any other parent in the entire country. She can’t say I’m an unsuitable father. There’s not one blamed thing she can pin on me. She must have someone willing to falsify evidence. Get a mole in her lawyer’s office, Morris. Find out what’s going on.”
    Seth tried to control the red rage throbbing through him as the lawyer continued the conversation. He turned back to his computer screen and scanned his e-mail. He clenched and unclenched his fist around the pencil. He reached for a toffee and crunched it in two as soon as it hit his tongue. He still wanted to punch something.
    She couldn’t have Chad. No lying, scheming, two-timing bitch would get her hands on his son. She had no proof that he’d had more than one drink that night. She had no proof that his recklessness had driven that car over the cliff. But he had proof enough that Natalie and her layabout new husband needed his money, that they had lied and schemed to get Chad before, just as they lied and schemed to do it now. His ex wanted revenge, but that bastard of a husband of hers wanted money. Seth wondered if Natalie knew how much of her funds her lover-boy had gone through. He’d kept close watch on them over the years. One thing his father had taught him, never take your eyes off the enemy.
    As he hung up the phone, Seth heard screeches from the front lawn, and he swiveled in his desk chair to look outside again.
    A bathing-suit-clad nymph cavorted on the lawn with an equally scantily attired Chad. Seth dropped the pencil in his hand as his son swung his wheelchair on the paved drive, aimed his water gun, and sent a shrieking Miss Cochran running after him with a similar gadget. She must have stopped and bought a water gun of her own.
    For a few seconds, Seth sat there in blank incomprehension. He’d never