Shades of Passion (5 page)

CHAPTER THREE

L
ESTER
D
AVENPORT HAD
made many mistakes in his life. He hadn’t taken school seriously. He’d taken alcohol far too seriously. And he’d been a terrible husband. So terrible that his wife had ultimately left him, just as he’d always known she would, then up and died anyway, leaving him to deal with his daughter’s grief as well as his own.

His biggest mistake, however, had been entrusting his daughter—his sweet little Beth—to the care of the Charleston mental health system. He’d known his daughter had deserved better. Not a county hospital, but the best that money could buy. He should have done whatever it took to get her out of there.

Only he hadn’t had that kind of money. And his daughter had suffered because of it.

Now, as Lester imagined that suffering—the kind of pain his daughter must have been feeling to have done what she had—he sobbed so loudly the sound hurt his ears. Hands shaking, he reached for the box of cards he’d bought at the grocery store. He picked one at random—they all sported puppies, so it didn’t matter—and began to write.

Beth had loved puppies.

Beth! his mind cried as he wrote.

His sweet Beth.

After a few days in the hospital, she’d started to get better. He’d seen it in her eyes. The last time he’d visited her, he’d talked about bringing her home. How wonderful it would be—just the two of them together again. This time, he’d promised, he wouldn’t mess up. They were going to have a fresh start.

As he’d talked, Beth hadn’t spoken a word.

She’d seemed to get worse after that.

He’d seen it. Why hadn’t they?

They’d left her alone. His sweet daughter. Even after they’d known what she wanted—to end her pain, to leave this world—they’d left her alone with the means to accomplish her goal.

A damn teddy bear. One that Leo, her hoodlum of a boyfriend, had brought her. Lester had never liked the kid. He’d done his best to keep Beth away from him, but the hospital staff hadn’t been smart enough to do the same thing. They’d taken the teddy bear away from Beth, but they hadn’t thought to check Beth’s mouth. That’s where Beth had hidden the ribbon.

After Beth had died—no, after she’d killed herself with the ribbon that had been tied around the damn teddy bear’s neck—Lester had wanted to kill Leo. He’d thought about it. Planned it. Had been this close to ending Leo’s life.

But then he’d realized the kid couldn’t really be blamed.

No
, she
was the one to blame.

Beth’s doctor.

Nina Whitaker. The daughter of a wealthy politician who’d played at helping others when she hadn’t known what the hell she was talking about.

She’d said Beth was going to be okay.

That she’d take care of her.

She’d lied.

Then she’d left.

She’d thought she could run and leave her mistakes behind her, right along with Beth’s memory.

But she couldn’t.

She wouldn’t.

Every year, Lester made sure of it.

Every year, he sent her a card.

Every year, he reminded Nina Whitaker that Beth was dead—and that it was her fault.

CHAPTER FOUR

S
EVERAL DAYS AFTER BEING
told he had an appointment with a shrink, Simon pulled into San Francisco Memorial Hospital’s parking lot. If he drove a little faster and slammed his car door a little harder than normal, so be it. Normally, he was cool as ice, unflappable and disciplined enough to work a case for hours, days, even months—whatever it took to get the job done. But he was here under protest and he was pissed and he didn’t care who knew it.

Damn it, he had interviews in the Cann murder case to conduct. At least, he
should
be conducting them. Instead, he’d been forced to hand off a few of them to DeMarco just so Simon could spill his guts to some stranger. If his fellow SIG members had thought he was surly before, they’d better watch the hell out. Work was supposed to be his escape, but ever since his conversation with Mac, all he could think about was Lana.

Not good. He needed to burn off some of his anger and frustration before he met with Dr. Kyle Shepard or he might just find himself on a leave of absence from SIG before he was ready for it.

As he made his way to the hospital’s main entrance, the sound of female laughter caught his attention. To his right, two women were getting into a convertible Bug. They smiled flirtatiously when they caught sight of him, but he felt no surge of attraction toward them; that worried him. They were young and pretty and he felt
nothing?
It was as if Lana’s death had killed his ability to be attracted to another female.

Hell, who was he kidding? He hadn’t been attracted to another woman well before Lana’s death. And since they’d broken up before she’d died, it had been over eight months since he’d even had sex
.

That couldn’t be good. Simon was an extremely sexual man and like many cops, he relied on an active sex life to balance out the stress of his career. Before Lana had died, despite the fact she’d still been grieving her dead husband, Johnny Hudson, he’d been focused on her for close to two years. He could barely remember being attracted to a woman before her. After she’d died, well...romance was the last thing on his mind. It hadn’t escaped his notice that of the SIG team members, he was the only one who was currently single or not getting any. Mac had his wife, Jase had Carrie and DeMarco was constantly hooking up with some new woman.

No wonder Mac and Commander Stevens were worried about him. He’d obviously been ignoring his baser needs too long.

Maybe when he was done talking to Dr. Shepard he’d go to McGill’s Bar, a local cop hangout. Pickup joints and one-night stands weren’t his style, but he could probably do with some physical relief. Sex with no emotional commitment. It wasn’t pretty, but not much about his life was.

Without another thought for the females in the convertible, he continued forward. When he caught sight of another woman getting out of her car, however, his gut immediately clenched.

He froze. His first thought was...
she looks like Lana.

His second thought was...
something’s not right with her.

His cop senses went on alert.

He knew immediately why she reminded him of Lana. She was blonde. Not just pretty. Gorgeous. Elegant. Like Lana, she was the kind of woman you couldn’t help noticing.

So Simon noticed.

And this time when he was confronted with a good-looking woman, he felt an unmistakable stirring of attraction.

He studied her more closely. Her resemblance to Lana was only superficial. Her face was more angular, her features sharper and her eyes were almond-shaped, suggesting she had some exotic ancestry. Her body was also different. Where Lana had been slim and athletic, this woman’s curves were more lush. Her hips wider. She looked tidy, pulled together in a silk blouse and tailored skirt.

Her car, on the other hand, was god-awful ugly. An old Ford station wagon in a faded eggplant color. The contrast between her beauty and the car’s run-down junkyard condition didn’t connect. That immediately made him edgy. He didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.

He told himself he was being ridiculous.

Driving a beat-up old car wasn’t a crime. Maybe she spent her money on hair salons and fancy clothes rather than what she drove.

With a shake of his head, he walked until he was right next to her. Before he could pass her, she turned and brushed against him. Innocent as it was, the brief contact caused both of them to jerk back. She dropped her bag, spilling its contents on the ground.

“Sorry,” she muttered. He crouched down to help her, frowning when he saw the small, crudely sewn rag doll, just about four inches tall, lying amid her keys, wallet and—

She stepped closer and crouched beside him. He couldn’t help noticing the graceful sweep of her slender calves. To his utter surprise, his fingers itched to touch them. To determine for himself if they were as smooth as they looked. Disturbed, he jerked his gaze away and somehow ended up knocking heads with her.

She gasped.

“Shit,” he muttered.

She raised a hand to briefly rub her temple. Her eyes were green. Soft and pale just like her creamy skin and her golden hair. “It’s okay. I wasn’t looking where I was going. I—”

Her gaze flickered to the ground. Abruptly her words cut off and her face turned bright red. Simon looked back down at the contents of her purse. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before and felt heat spread through his body; not to his face but someplace farther south. The word
Sextuplets
blazed up at him.

Was that—?

She snatched up the DVD case and shoved it back into her purse, then threw in everything else before standing. He straightened far more slowly.

He swiped a hand across his face but obviously didn’t do a good enough job of hiding his smile.

“Not a word,” she said and started to walk away.

Her voice was like another punch in the gut. It was a bit gravelly. A rocker chick’s voice inside a woman who looked like an angel. He fell in step beside her.

She didn’t look at him. When they reached the front entrance and passed through the automatic sliding doors, she paused in front of the Information counter. He followed suit.

Her gaze met his and her chin tilted up. “A patient gave it to me. She’s an older woman and she has a collection and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings—”

He pressed his lips together and managed to keep a serious expression on his face. He nodded. “Right. She collects porn and thought for some reason you might be interested. I wonder what made her draw that conclusion?”

She narrowed her eyes, trying to look threatening but only managing to look adorable. The tendrils of attraction he’d been feeling exploded into something hot and wild. It took him by surprise, so much so that she’d already moved toward the lobby elevators before he noticed. He followed.

She frowned at seeing him standing next to her again.

“What?” he said. “We’re in a public hospital and I have a doctor’s appointment.”

It had been a while since he’d met a woman who blushed so easily.

“Of course,” she said.

“Are you one?”

“Am I one what?”

“A doctor?”

“Yes.”

“Then you shouldn’t be so embarrassed about getting caught with a skin flick in your bag. The human body and what it needs to survive is nothing new to you, right?”

She smiled tightly. “Right. Excuse me...”

She turned and walked away.

He cursed himself for driving her off. “Weren’t you going to take the elevator?” he called.

“Yes, I
was.
”

He watched her go with more than a little regret, but he was smiling when he got into the elevator. Too bad he couldn’t have run into the doctor at McGill’s. He’d have spotted her and he’d have done his best to bed her. Because despite his musings in the parking lot, he was definitely interested in having sex again.

And suddenly she was the only one he was interested in having it with.

* * *

N
INA ACTUALLY FANNED
herself as she took the stairs up to the sixth floor. Whew.

That was one handsome man. Not pretty-boy handsome, either.

Manly man handsome.

Manly man
sexy.

And given the way he’d reacted to seeing the porn she’d had in her purse, he had a sense of humor, too, which merely made him more attractive.

She cringed at the memory of him seeing that DVD case, but at least it had distracted him from Rachel’s rag doll. She’d noticed the brief surprise on his face when he’d glimpsed it and she’d once again wondered whether her inability to get rid of the doll represented a bigger problem than she’d thought. She didn’t need an object to remember her sister, after all. Especially one that her sister had been cradling on the night she’d...

Swallowing hard, Nina shook her head. No. She wasn’t going to deal with that particular memory right now. Especially not today. It was the third anniversary of Beth Davenport’s death and Nina had no illusions about what was in store for her today. Last year, Beth’s father, Lester Davenport, had proven how resourceful he was, once again tracking down her place of work and mailing her one of those hideous cards of his. Before the day was over, she’d probably get another one. Until then, she would damn well think about something else.

Someone else.

With determination, she thought about the man from the parking lot again.

He wasn’t quick to smile, but when he did, the expression softened his intimidating, almost grim countenance into something mischievously boyish. It made her think of playing tickle-tag along the ocean shore or dancing the salsa at a hip city club or resting her head in his lap while she read a book in Golden Gate Park. In other words, it made her think of all the things she’d like to do with a partner, yet her life had become her work and she rarely dated, and she hadn’t yet met a man she could picture herself doing all those things with. At least not before him...

Given he was a complete stranger, that was either pathetic or a sign that she was ready to explore dating again. It was all a matter of interpretation.

The question was which interpretation she was going to choose.

Having reached the sixth floor, Nina pulled open the stairwell door and headed toward her office. And just like always, once she immersed herself in work, thoughts about what might be possible in any other aspect of her life faded away.

* * *

H
IS LONG LIMBS SPRAWLED
out in front of him, Simon tried to put the pretty doctor out of his mind and waited for his appointment with the shrink to start. As more and more time went by, he found himself thinking about her and wondering if he should track her down. Then what?

Despite that porn DVD in her purse, she didn’t look like a woman into casual sex, which meant she probably
had
gotten it from one of her patients.

When he caught himself smiling, he shook his head. He had to focus here, not think about some intriguing woman and the equally intriguing contents of her purse.