Birthright

his relaxed expression chill, then heat. Though he rose, yanked on his jeans, paced, he didn’t interrupt with comments or questions until she was finished.
    “Did you talk to Callie today?”
    “Yes, before I left, and when I got to the airport here. She’s fine, Doug, if a little irritated with me for interrupting her work with the second call.”
    “This can’t be put down to accident or impulse, or even a vicious kind of distraction. This was premeditated, with her as the specific target.”
    “She knows that, just as she knows whoever laced the tea was one of her own team. She won’t be careless. Right now, we have to leave it to her to handle that end. We’ll handle this one.”
    “I’ve got a list of Spencers—the secretary’s last name. As far as we know. I got them out of the phone book, and I’ve been running Internet searches. I’m down to six who might work. The others have lived here too long to fit. I was working out how best to approach them when the desk called me downstairs.”
    “We could use the telemarketing angle, do phone surveys and try to eliminate a few more.”
    “Are you now or have you ever been a part of an organization that markets infants?”
    She was opening her briefcase now, taking out a pad. “I was thinking more along the lines of targeting the woman of the house—do you now or have you ever worked outside the home? In what field and so on.”
    “It’ll take time. And you have to figure a lot of people just hang up on phone solicitations and surveys.”
    “Yes. I’d be one of them.” She doodled absently on the pad. She could read him now, and nodded. “And yes, there’s something to be said for the more direct approach.Just go knock on doors and ask if we’re speaking to Marcus Carlyle’s former secretary.”
    “That was my plan. Tell you what, since I’ve got a sidekick, we can play both angles. I’ll knock on doors, you stay here and play annoying telemarketer.”
    “So you can keep me safely locked up in a hotel room? I don’t think so. We go together, Douglas. Side being the operative part of sidekick.”
    “Just stop and think for a minute.” He followed her as she went into the bathroom, worked the shower controls until she was satisfied with the temperature. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with. You’ve already had your office destroyed, been scared enough to send Ty away. Think about him if something happens to you.”
    She slipped out of the robe, hung it neatly on the hook behind the door, then stepped under the spray. “You’re trying to scare me, and that’s the right button to push.”
    “Good.”
    “But I can’t and won’t live that way. It took me two months after Steve was killed to work up the courage to go into a goddamn convenience store, in broad daylight. But I did it because you can’t constantly be afraid of what might happen. If you do, you lose control of what is happening, and all the joy and pain it holds for you.”
    “Damn.” He pulled off his jeans, stepped into the shower behind her, wrapped his arms around her waist. “You don’t leave me any room to argue.”
    She patted his hand, then stepped out before her hair got wet. “I’m a professional.”
    “The list is out there on the desk. There’s a city map with it. We might as well plot out the most convenient route.”
    “I’ll start that.” She dried off, put the robe back on.
    But when he came out to join her, she wasn’t working on anything. Instead she stood by the desk holding a little Boston Red Sox ball cap in her hands. “You got this for Tyler.”
    “Yeah, I thought he’d get a kick out of it. When mygrandfather used to travel, he’d always bring me a ball cap or a toy. Some little thing.”
    He picked up his shirt again, uneasy with the way she simply stood, running the bill of the cap through her fingers. “I didn’t get it for him to score points with him, or you. Well, not entirely.”
    “Not entirely.”
    A ripple of irritation crossed his face. “Having been a small boy once, I know the value of a ball cap. I saw it at the airport and picked it up. When I was paying for it, the point angle occurred to me.”
    “He asked when you’d be back.”
    “Yeah?”
    It was the instant delight in Doug’s voice that struck her first. Instant, natural and true. Her heart tripped. “Yes, he did. And he’ll love this. Points or not, it was very sweet of you to think of it.”
    “I didn’t forget you