Free Shadowed Paradise by Blair Bancroft Page B

he’d do her like he did that
bitch who said she wanted to sell him a house. His mother’s eyes
had grown real big. She didn’t even do the mom-thing and tell him
she knew he would never kill anyone. It was like she’d always known
he was going to kill somebody someday. She’d dialed 911 before he
even saw her reach for the phone.
    One blow to the head was all it took. When
911 called back to see why the phone had been hung up, he’d
explained it was all a mistake. A kid playing with the phone. No,
ma’am, absolutely, ma’am, he’d see it never happened again,
ma’am.
    He drove the body to the next town. Dug a
shallow grave in a stand of pines draped in Spanish moss. Mom
always liked Spanish moss.
     
    The elevator was spacious, well-lit,
air-conditioned. As far as Brad Blue was concerned, it was a
coffin. Carrying him toward the inevitable. He tugged at his tie,
wondering why he’d worn it. Armor for the awkward formality of the
occasion? After all, he’d never done this before. Affairs ended
when he moved on. Another assignment, another city, another woman.
That was life, right?
    Right.
    How did he tell a woman with whom he’d made
passionate and erotic love only four nights earlier that he wanted
his freedom? A strikingly beautiful, dynamic woman who made it
plain she couldn’t get enough of him?
    Conceited ass. Who do you
think you are, Blue? According to the traditions of
such hot affairs, it should have burned itself out weeks ago. There
was no pretense of love. Just great sex and the satisfaction of two
sharp, headstrong intelligences in a sparring match of
wits.
    And he was blowing it all for what? A little
brown wren of a woman with blue-green eyes, an appealing kid, both
with a mysterious past. A woman who had remained frozen under the
touch of the most chaste, respectful goodnight kiss he’d offered in
his entire life. For a moment there, he’d even thought she was
going to pull away from him.
    Well, hell, he’d always liked a
challenge.
    Then again, was he a complete fool when he
held a woman in his arms on a flooded, rainswept bridge and
experienced a first faint glimmering of fate? Even before he’d
climbed the ramp to Virginia Bentley’s greatroom and gotten his
first good look at Claire Langdon, he had begun to suspect his life
had made a sharp turn in a new direction.
    But make sense of it he couldn’t.
    A medieval fairytale, that’s what it was.
He’d rescued the Fair Maiden and some modern-day Merlin had
rewarded the Blue Knight by making him her permanent protector.
    It made about as much sense as any other
explanation.
    Maybe he was suffering a male version of
panic over the inexorable ticking of the biological clock? He
didn’t want to attend his kids’ college graduations in a
wheelchair.
    And monogamy wasn’t a bummer. Until Diane
Lake he’d lived the life of a monk for nearly two years. He’d
returned to Golden Beach barely able to stand on his feet. And good
old Phil had been there for him, armed with brisk efficiency and a
certain modicum of carefully controlled compassion. She’d organized
his invalid life—housekeeper, doctors’ appointments, physical
therapy. And Saint Garrett, damn him, had produced a male nurse to
live in the apartment over the garage. Brad suspected his
grandfather had footed the bill for all those extras, but Garrett
had grandly waved off Brad’s questions, and, truth to tell, he was
too damn weak at the time to care. Later . . . later he decided to
enjoy his illusions. There was definite poetic justice in his
expensive care being paid by the Whitlaw estate.
    When he’d recovered sufficiently for rational
conversation, he and Phil had discussed their relationship. At
twenty-four he’d been bitterly hurt to come home from a long tough
assignment and find her gone. If he had chased after her, would
anything have changed? Probably not. She had the opportunity to
take over her father’s business and he was hell-bent on saving the
world. They were