McIver's Mission (26 page)

"Christ, Arden. Do you really think I'd represent
the man who's accused of planting a bomb in your office and who may be
responsible for burning down your apartment?" He shook his head before she
could respond. "Forget it. I don't want you to answer that. No, I didn't
get him bail. Blake released him."

"Why?"

"The only evidence they had was that of an old
man who saw the suspect vehicle parked outside your office at four o'clock in
the morning. They wanted him to come in to pick Granger out of a lineup, but
they can't find him."

"The witness?"

Shaun nodded grimly. "Without him, the
prosecution's whole case falls apart. There are no prints on the box with the
bomb, none in your office, none in the vehicle—which was apparently stolen from
somewhere in Arizona three days earlier."

Arizona
. Arden
shook off the feeling of unease. It could only be a coincidence. Nothing more.
She had enough problems in her present without worrying about ghosts from her
past.

"Blake wouldn't tell me anything else," he
continued, "but I spoke briefly to Creighton and he said that they're
continuing to investigate. If they manage to find the witness, or any new
evidence, they'll bring Granger back in and
refile
charges."

In the meantime Arden somehow had to get through day
after day never knowing when or where her stalker might strike again. And he
would strike again. She couldn't say how she knew for sure, but she did. He was
still out there, waiting for the right moment. She shuddered.

Shaun wrapped his arms around her, dropped a kiss on
the top of her forehead. "I got a preliminary report from Logan
yesterday."

"A report on what?"

"Blake."

"Warren?"

"Yes, Warren."

She pulled out of his arms, stunned. "You had an
assistant district attorney investigated?"

Shaun shrugged. "I simply asked Logan to look
into his background."

"Why?"

"Because I don't trust him."

"You don't like him," Arden corrected.

"That, too," he agreed. "But I wouldn't
have had him checked out without reason."

"And your reason is?"

"Did he ever tell you that he was married?"
Shaun asked.

Arden frowned. "No."

"It seems he hasn't told anyone about his
ill-fated marriage."

"It's not a crime to be divorced," Arden
said.

"He's not divorced. He's widowed."

"Is that why you had him investigated?" This
wasn't making any sense to her.

"Greg Madison," Shaun named his law partner,
"was at Blake's wedding about six years ago."

Arden waited, with what she thought of as infinite
patience, for Shaun to get to the point.

"He married a woman by the name of Angela
Edwards, right here in
Fairweather
.

"Greg and Angela had been good friends in high
school, and they kept in touch after graduation. Even when Angela moved out to
California to study art at Berkeley."

"What happened to her?" Arden asked.

"She was killed in a motor vehicle accident a
couple of years ago."

"Maybe Warren doesn't talk about it because he's
still mourning her."

"It's not just that he never mentioned having
been married, but that he never mentioned any connection to
Fairweather
.
That's something that should have come up in conversation.

"And," Shaun continued, "Greg told me
that Angela contacted him just a few months before she died, wanting a
recommendation for a divorce attorney in California."

Arden rubbed at her temple. "What are you
suggesting now—that Blake had his wife killed?"

"It might have been an unfortunate
accident," Shaun agreed. "But the affidavit she filed with the court
when she petitioned to end her marriage included allegations of abuse."

"
Allegations
," she repeated.

"Come on, Arden. You've dedicated your life to
working with abused women. Have you ever had a client who lied about being
battered?"

"No," she admitted. "But that doesn't
mean it couldn't happen."

"Why are you defending him?"

"I'm not defending him. But even if he abused his
wife—and that's still just an 'if'—I still don't understand why you felt it
necessary to dig into his background."

"I think Blake could be connected to the threats
you've been getting."

"That's ridiculous."

"Why are you so unwilling to consider the
possibility that he might be responsible for the letters when last night you
practically accused me of being your stalker?"

"I apologized for last night," she reminded
him. "I wasn't thinking clearly."

"But you're thinking clearly now," Shaun
countered, "and you need to consider all possibilities."

"What possible motive could he have for wanting
to harm me?"

"You're a powerful voice for abused women. A
threat to the men who hurt them."

"Warren Blake lived in California until a few
months ago. Even if his wife grew up in Pennsylvania,
I
never met
her."

But she could tell by the determined expression on
Shaun's face that he wasn't prepared to let go of his theory.

"You're grasping at straws," she said
gently.

He sighed. "Maybe I am. Because at this point
it's all we've got."

She shook her head, frustrated that he was right,
terrified to think of what other straws he might find to grasp at. "I want
you to call off the investigation. Please. Let the police handle it."

"I can't." He was adamant.

She was frantic. "Why not?"

"Because I love you."

Chapter
15

«
^
»

I
t
wasn't the way Shaun had planned to tell her. When he finally got around to
saying the words he'd carried for so long in his heart, he'd thought there
would be candlelight and soft music. He hadn't expected to blurt them out in a
moment of frustration. But he had, and now Arden just stared at him, pale and
stunned.

"Okay," he said, trying to lighten the
moment, hoping to ease the tight band around his heart. "I guess you
weren't quite ready to hear that, but it's true. It's how I feel, Arden."

"We—" she cleared her throat, wrapped her
arms around herself "—we haven't even been dating two months."

"I didn't realize there was a term requirement on
falling in love," he said dryly.

"It just seems kind of fast."

"I started to fall in love with you that first
day in the park."

"That's
really
too fast."

"Obviously you don't feel the same way."

"I'm not sure how I feel," she admitted.
"I care about you, more than I've ever cared for anyone else. But love?
I'm not sure I'm even capable of love."

"He must have hurt you very badly."

She started to shake her head, then stopped. "I
can't … I don't know if I can talk to you about it. Not yet."

"I wish you would tell me. Not because I need to
know all the secrets of your past, but because I want you to trust me enough to
want to talk about it."

"I've never told anyone about it."

"I'm not just anyone," he said.

"No." She managed a smile. "You're
not."

"I can wait."

"I might never be ready to talk about it. To … to
love you."

"I'll wait as long as I need to." It was
true. It was the one thing he was certain of. He couldn't imagine his life
without Arden; he wouldn't consider a future that didn't have her in it.

"I can't ask that of you. You deserve so much
more than I can give you."

"I want
you
, Arden. But I'm not going to
push for something you're not ready for. Let's just take things one day at a
time and see what happens."

"Are you sure that's okay?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"Okay," she agreed hesitantly.

"Good. Now for more immediate matters."

"Such as?"

"Thanksgiving."

"What about it?"

"It's next week, and I thought it might be nice
to cook a turkey here. Invite Colin and Nikki and
Carly
,
do a family sort of thing." Ease her into the idea of being part of his
family. Show her how wonderful it would be if she stayed with him forever.

"That sounds like a nice idea."

He smiled, pleased by her agreement. "Have you
ever cooked a turkey?"

"No."

"Me, neither."

* * *

"Someone
needs to write a basic cookbook," Arden said, scanning the contents of the
thick volume on the counter. "
Thanksgiving Dinner for Dummies
. This
one has a recipe for sage dressing and candied yams, but nowhere does it say
how long the turkey's supposed to cook."

"Until it's done."

"You're a big help," Arden muttered.

"I think there were cooking instructions on the
wrapper."

"The wrapper that you put out in the
garbage?"

He winced. "Yeah, that one."

"Great."

"Why don't you just call Nikki?"

"No." She hated to admit that she was so
inept in the kitchen that she couldn't even cook a turkey. But she could call
Rebecca. Her secretary was well aware of her lack of culinary expertise, and
she wasn't likely to make too much fun of the woman who signed her paychecks.

"How long does it have to cook?" Shaun asked
when she hung up the phone.

"Until the little button in the turkey pops
out," Arden said.

Shaun looked at the bird. "What button?"

"The button that's in the kind of turkey that
Rebecca buys so that she knows when it's cooked."

"I guess we didn't get one with a button."

"You guessed right."

He pulled her into his arms, kissed her long and hard.
"To hell with the turkey," Shaun said. "Let's order
Chinese."

"We can't have Chinese for Thanksgiving,"
Arden protested. "It's very un-American."

"Says who?" Shaun countered. "There are
millions of Chinese Americans, and I bet at least some of them are having
Chinese for dinner."

"Probably sweet-and-sour turkey balls."

"If I can find out how long this bird needs to cook,
will you marry me?"

She dropped the can of cranberry she'd taken out of
the cupboard. She knew he was teasing, but something tightened inside her. It
wasn't an entirely uncomfortable feeling, almost a longing. Whatever it was,
she pushed it aside. "If you find out how to cook it, I'll do the
dishes," she countered.

"Deal."

It took him less than five minutes on the computer to
download the necessary instructions from the Internet.

"I never realized you were so resourceful,"
she commented when he handed her the printed page. She knew she'd been conned,
but she was so relieved to have the information she didn't care. And she knew
he'd help with the cleanup, anyway.

"You'd be amazed what kind of information you can
get from the Internet," Shaun told her, slipping his arms around her waist
and nuzzling the back of her neck.

Arden felt her blood heat, her body ache. "Such
as?"

"The entire Kama Sutra. With pictures." He
turned her to face him, lowered his head to nibble on her lips.

"Really?"

"
Mmm
-hmm." He was too
busy raining kisses over her jaw to give a more audible response.

"We'll save that lesson for another time,"
she said. "Right now we have to get this bird in the oven."

"Or we could order Chinese and use our time more
… creatively," he suggested.

Arden laughed and pushed him away. "This
Thanksgiving dinner was your idea."

He sighed but gamely rolled up his sleeves. "I'll
peel the potatoes."

As much as Arden had stressed about preparing her
first Thanksgiving meal, she enjoyed puttering around the kitchen with Shaun.
In the few weeks that they'd been living together, they'd established an easy
camaraderie. It was almost too easy, she thought sometimes.

That worried her. Even though they'd agreed to take
things one step at a time, and he'd promised not to push her, she was worried.
They'd been pretty much inseparable for the past few weeks, but that was normal
at the beginning of a relationship. Wasn't it?

She didn't really know. She hadn't had a relationship
like this since … well, never. The last semi-serious relationship she'd had was
back in law school, and her experience with Brad had taught her to protect
herself, to guard her heart.