Free Her Sister's Secret (Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance) by Linda Style Page A

business he had, it was obvious the man knew his motorcycles. He said he’d been riding since he was fifteen and had dozens in his collection. She’d asked immediately when she could photograph them, but he’d put her off. Which only meant she’d try again.
    She glanced around the room. While she’d been gone, her room had been cleaned and the bed turned down. She loved her hosts’ attentiveness, loved the way Gretta and Johnny made her feel like part of the family in the short time she’d been at the inn. Maybe when this was over—
    No, that wouldn’t happen. If she found SaraJane and got custody as planned, she’d probably never return to Estrade.
    Voices filtered up from outside, and, phone in hand, Whitney padded stocking footed to the bay window. Once again she couldn’t see anyone, since the sound came from below her on the veranda. She sat on the window seat, curled her legs under her and punched in Albert’s number, anxious to tell him what she’d learned today, in case he could use any of it in his search for SaraJane’s birth certificate.
    She left her number, then called Tanya.
    “Hey, Ms. Editor, it’s about time you decided to show up for work.”
    “I had another hot date with one of my many lovers. Where are you? And what’s so urgent?”
    Whitney hesitated, thinking how to explain.
    “You mentioned another book,” Tanya prompted.
    “Motorcycles. A coffee-table book on motorcycles.”
    “Motor— Uh, excuse me, I think there’s something wrong with the phone.”
    Whitney heard a loud thumping on the other end, as if Tanya was hitting the phone with her hand.
    “There, I hope that’s better,” her friend said, coming back on the line. “I actually thought I heard you say something about a book on mo-tor-cy-cles . ” She emphasized, drawing out the syllables.
    Whitney laughed out loud. The woman’s terse sense of humor, which she claimed was the result of being raised an only child in an Italian-Jewish family, never failed to amuse Whitney.
    “Right. Motorcycles it is,” she said, launching into her best sales pitch, describing the concept in the same way she had for Rhys. “And the bottom line is that I still have an enormous amount of research to do even to get a proposal to you. What I really want to know is if the project interests you.”
    Tanya’s silence suggested she liked the idea or was at least considering the possibilities. When she didn’t like something, her reaction was immediate.
    “Besides, I think it’s a good departure from my usual work.”
    “Any particular reason you picked motorcycles?”
    “Not just motorcycles,” Whitney said. “Also the people who ride them, where they go, what they do—you know, all that stuff I just said.”
    “You checked Books in Print? ” Tanya switched to her editorial mode.
    “Yes, but like I said, I still have a ton of research to do.” Whitney paused, uncertain how much to tell her friend. Tanya was privy to almost everything about her, and had ever since they were roomies in college. Whitney had told her about Morgan and that Whitney had hired Albert to help locate Morgan’s baby…her niece, but this was different. She wasn’t sure she wanted to divulge how the book tied in with it—not just yet.
    She didn’t want anything to screw up her chances of finding SaraJane. Besides, the book idea really did excite her. Nothing wrong with dual research, especially if it gave her legitimacy with Rhys.
    “I plan to be in Arizona for a while doing research at a motorcycle shop called Journey. The owner’s offered to let me hang around for a couple of weeks to research the business. Like an intern.”
    “You had to go to Arizona to research? There’s no place like that in Southern California—where you happen to own a house?”
    Tanya knew something was up. They were too close for her not to know. Still, Whitney the timing wasn’t right. She felt a need to keep some information to herself for the moment. “Estrade was