Return to You

I?"
    Clancy nodded. "Elaine Adams is definitely
up to something."
    He felt the compulsion to snort. He'd been
spending entirely too much time with Mae Pembroke. "What did you
discover?" he asked, knowing the PI was barking up the wrong tree.
He couldn't say why he was so sure of it but Elaine would sell out
her own mother before she'd sell him out.
    "She's been spending an inordinate amount of
time with Olivia." Clancy pulled out a small notebook. "In the past
week, she's been at Romantic Notions four times, an hour being the
shortest period. And that's not counting the evenings she's gotten
to together with Olivia and Olivia's friends." He pushed the
notebook across the table for him to look at.
    Parker frowned at it. He didn't know Elaine
had been spending so much time with Olivia. When was she finding
the time to go to Romantic Notions?
    Was that where her selection of lingerie was
coming from? He preferred to think so. Thinking she'd been wearing
such alluring underwear all these years, without him realizing it,
would drive him insane.
    "Has she been asking you anything? Anything
related to Olivia and your relationship?"
    Parker blinked and brought his thoughts back
to the present. "What?"
    "I believe Ms. Adams is going to sell Olivia
out to the tabloids."
    "Interesting theory." Part of him wanted to
laugh at that absurdity. The other part couldn't discredit the
notion so quickly given Elaine's strange behavior. "What would be
her motives? Surely she'd make more money selling the behind the
scenes for the movie."
    Clancy shrugged. "Who knows what's
motivating her? Perhaps she's out to seek revenge on you. Denied
her any raises in the recent past?"
    "Hardly," he replied wryly. Elaine made more
money in a year than most lawyers.
    "Any other grudges she might hold against
you?"
    "No." Not until tonight when he forced her
out of his bathroom. Though she shouldn't have been in there to
begin with.
    "Could she be jealous of Olivia and want her
out of your life?"
    "No," he replied definitively. Elaine wasn't
the type of person to resort to petty emotions. That was one of the
reasons he'd kept her around. She was cool and calm at all
times.
    Except for tonight.
    She'd actually pushed him.
    He could still feel the imprint of her small
hand on his chest, right over his heart. He'd felt her warmth
through his dress shirt. He'd never thought of Elaine as a warm
creature.
    "Mr. Parker?"
    Parker refocused on the man in front of him.
"Elaine has been championing Olivia as of late. I have a difficult
time seeing her doing anything to harm my daughter."
    "Maybe her support is a front to cover up
her activity."
    This was absurd. Reminding himself this was
his scheme, he pulled what little patience he had together. "Do
what you need to do and let me know what you find."
    "Shall we meet again next weekend? I'm sure
I'll have more information by then."
    Clancy set his unfinished drink on the table
and got up. He hovered uncertainly over the table before he asked,
"Mr. Parker, is there anything you'd like to tell me?"
    "Such as?"
    "I just have a feeling there's more to this
than you're letting on."
    "There's absolutely nothing to tell." Damn
it, he wished the man weren't so astute.
    Clancy studied him for a split second before
nodding. "I'll be in touch."
    Parker watched the lanky man strut out after
a casual goodbye to the man behind the bar.
    He needed to resolve Michael and Olivia's
situation before this so-called investigation got out of
control.
    He looked at his wristwatch. Nine o'clock.
They'd been in the shed less than two hours.
    As Mae pointed out, locking two volatile
people in a small space had to result in some kind of chemical
reaction. He was counting on it—he needed to call Clancy off. If
Elaine found out... After this evening, he wasn't sure she wouldn't
resort to some kind of bodily damage before leaving him.
    He blinked, trying to identify the sharp
pang the thought of her leaving him brought on.
    He dismissed it. That wasn't going to
happen. He wouldn't let it.
    He downed the rest of his drink. Leaving the
bar, he decided to go for a walk around town. The alternative of
going back to Mae's farm and facing Elaine was on par with an IRS
audit.

     
     

Chapter Twenty
     
     
    Olivia frowned at Michael's sleeping form.
He never said he wouldn't see anyone else.
    She resisted the urge to punch him. Of
course he'd declare he didn't want another man to sniff anywhere in
her vicinity while they were seeing each other,