Free Trouble in Tourmaline (Silhouette Special Edition) by Jane Toombs Page A

certainly a shrink attitude. “Who appointed you my therapist?” he demanded. “If Gert sicced you on me, I swear—”
    “No, no, your aunt didn’t ask me to do anything. And of course I’m not your therapist. It’s just that I can’t help seeing that you’re in denial about the past. It’s possible—”
    His hand sliced the air between them. “Enough! No more jargon. No more analyzing me. Understand?”
    “I hear you, but—”
    His annoyance sliding into anger, David was about to turn and walk away when he heard a familiar voice.
    “Oh, Brent,” a woman said. “There’s David, over by that SUV.”
    He didn’t have to look around to know it was Iris, beyond a doubt. She was damn brave to turn up here with that bastard in tow. He swung around.
    “Daddy?” Sarah’s plaintive voice cooled his rising rage. He looked at her instead of at the other two, six-year-old Sarah staring at him as though he were a stranger.
    He strode over, crouched in front of her and held out his arms. She hesitated, but then came to him and he held her tight for a long moment. When he let Sarah go and rose, he kept hold of her hand while hewaited to hear what Iris wanted now. She always wanted something.
    She was, he noticed, sleeker and more expensively dressed. She glanced at Amy and frowned. “Perhaps we could go to your apartment, David.”
    “Here is fine.” He wasn’t giving an inch.
    Iris shrugged. “If you insist. Sarah has come to pay you a visit while Brent and I take our delayed honeymoon cruise.” She laid a crimson finger-nailed hand on Murdock’s arm and smiled up at him.
    Murdock hadn’t spoken yet. Now he nodded, murmured something that might have been a greeting, then said, “We’ll be gone at least three months.”
    So they were dropping Sarah off with him with no warning, almost as though she were a pet rather than a child. With an effort he forced himself to shut off his anger at the two adults and concentrated on his daughter.
    Looking down at her, he told her the truth. “I’ve missed you, punkin. I’m happy you’re here, happy you’ll be staying with me for a while.”
    Sarah offered him a shy smile, clinging to his hand as though to a safety line. She didn’t once look at her mother or at Murdock.
    “That’s settled, then,” Iris said briskly. “We left Sarah’s things with your aunt. Kiss Mommy goodbye, dear.” She bent and offered her cheek. Sarah kept hold of David’s hand while she gave Iris’s cheek a quick peck.
    “Now say goodbye to Daddy Brent.”
    Sarah mumbled something unintelligible, her grip tightening on David’s hand.
    Daddy Brent. The words made David want to gag.
    “Well, then we’re off.” Iris’s bright smile didn’t reach her eyes. Holding Murdock’s arm, she walked toward the white Mercedes parked across the lot, her heels clicking on the blacktop.
    “Sarah, my name is Amy.” The words brought David’s awareness back to her.
    “Amy’s my friend,” he told Sarah, which wasn’t quite a lie. He couldn’t really call her an enemy just because she’d tried to practice her profession on him without his knowledge or consent. To give her the benefit of the doubt, she might not have realized what she was doing until he brought her up short.
    “Your great-aunt Gert made us some limeade and cookies,” Amy told Sarah. “Why don’t the three of us go up to my new apartment and share them?”
    Sarah looked at David, who smiled at her. “I know I’m thirsty,” he said, “and it’s very good limeade.”
    “Do you live there, too?” Sarah asked him.
    “I live in another apartment in this complex.”
    “Your father’s cat has kittens,” Amy said. “After we finish our snack I’m sure he’ll take you over to see them.”
    Sarah’s blue gaze settled on David. “Kittens? Really? How many?”
    “Four.”
    “Mommy won’t let me have a kitten ’cause she doesn’t like cats,” Sarah confided as they climbed the steps to Amy’s apartment. “ He