Hidden Riches

forwardand rest his head in her lap. “I don’t have anything to offer.”
    “You don’t want to,” she corrected. “And considering the role models in your life, it’s certainly logical. The problem is, Skimmerhorn, emotions just aren’t logical. Mine aren’t.” She tilted her head and the sun creamed over her skin, warming it, as her voice was warm, as the room was warm with her in it. “I told you I love you, and you’d probably have preferred a slap in the face, but there it is. I didn’t mean to say it—or maybe I did.”
    In a vulnerable and weary gesture, she brushed a hand through her hair. “Maybe I did,” she repeated softly. “Because even though I understood how you might react, I’m just not used to bottling my feelings inside. But they are my feelings, Jed. They don’t ask you for anything.”
    “When a woman tells a man she loves him, she’s asking for everything.”
    “Is that how you see it?” She smiled a little, but her eyes were dulled with sadness. “Let me tell you how I see it. Love’s a gift, and can certainly be refused. Refusing doesn’t destroy the gift, it simply puts it aside. You’re free to do that. I’m not asking for a gift in return. It’s not that I don’t want it, but I don’t expect it.”
    She rose then and, crossing the room, took his face gently in her hands. Her eyes were still sad, but there was a bottomless compassion in them that humbled him. “Take what’s offered, Jed, especially when it’s offered generously and without expectations. I won’t keep throwing it in your face. That would only embarrass us both.”
    “You’re leaving yourself open, Dora.”
    “I know. It feels right to me.” She kissed him, one cheek, the other, then his mouth. “Relax and enjoy, Skimmerhorn. I intend to.”
    “I’m not what you need.” But he gathered her close and held on. Because she was what he needed. She was so exactly what he needed.
    “You’re wrong.” She closed her eyes and willed the threatening tears away. “You’re wrong about the house, too. You’re both just waiting.”
     
    He kept losing his train of thought. Jed knew the details he and Brent discussed were vital, but he kept seeing Dora sitting on the window seat of his old, hated room, with sunlight pooling around her.
    And he kept remembering the way her hands had felt against his face when she’d smiled and asked him to accept love.
    “Jed, you’re making me feel like a boring history teacher.”
    Jed blinked, focused. “What?”
    “Exactly.” Blowing out a breath, Brent leaned back in his desk chair. “You want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
    “It’s nothing.” He washed the mood away with some of the station house’s atomic coffee. “What you’ve picked up on Winesap makes it look like he’s another underling. I still think the best way to handle this is to approach the top man, Finley. Not directly. The longer we can keep the smuggled painting under wraps, the better.”
    “What I can gather on the guy wouldn’t fill a teacup,” Brent complained. “He’s rich—rich enough to make you look like a piker, pal—successful, single, obsessively private.”
    “And as the head of a large import-export firm, would be the perfect warehouse for smuggled goods.”
    “If wishing only made it so,” Brent murmured. “We’ve got no hard evidence on Finley. Sure, the shipment was addressed to his assistant, and DiCarlo works for him.”
    “DiCarlo’s small-time, a hustler. You’ve only got to look at his rap sheet.”
    “And Finley has no rap sheet. He’s the American ideal, a modest self-made man and a solid citizen.”
    “Then a little digging shouldn’t hurt him,” Jed pointed out. “I want to take a trip to LA.”
    “I thought that was where this was leading.” Uncomfortable, Brent shifted. “Listen, Jed, I know you’ve got a personal investment in this. The department wouldn’t have diddly without you.”
    “But,” Jed interrupted, “I’m not with the department.”
    Feeling miserable, Brent pushed at his glasses, fiddled with papers on his desk. “Goldman’s asking questions.”
    “Maybe it’s time you answered them.”
    “The commissioner thinks so.”
    “I’m a civilian, Brent. There’s nothing to stop me from taking a trip to the coast—at my own expense, on my own time.”
    “Why don’t you cut the crap?” Brent blurted out. “I know you’ve got a meeting with the commissioner in an hour, and we both know what