“Oh, no,” Erin sighed, and then quickly hid her disappointment. “I knew that he had been thinking of moving in with his daughter and her husband, but I didn’t think that he had made up his mind.”
“Seems they made it up for him,” Mrs. Cavenaugh asserted. “I’m sure he left his notice in your mailbox.”
“Oh, thanks for reminding me.” Erin crossed the hallway and opened her mailbox. Among the various bills was Mr. Jefferies’s notice of vacancy. The last thing she needed right now was one more empty apartment. She needed the rental income just to keep up the mortgage, let alone the repairs and upkeep. But she couldn’t show her worries to Mrs. Cavenaugh. She called out to the friendly elderly woman as she mounted the stairs, “I’ll let you know exactly when the repairmen will be here.”
“Thanks, honey,” Mrs. Cavenaugh responded before closing the door to her apartment. Erin raced up the remaining stairs, anxious to get into the familiar and secure surroundings of her own apartment.
Kane pulled the small black sports car to the curb and snapped off the motor. He sat in the darkness for a minute, staring at the apartment house that Erin called home. He was angry and he was tense, but he tried to control his emotions so that Erin wouldn’t become suspicious.
Erin was already home. The lights in her apartment glowed in the night, and the Volkswagen Rabbit was sitting where she had parked it in front of the house. Kane’s eyes moved from the car back to the building. Even in the unearthly glow of the streetlamp he could see the signs of age and disrepair in the large old home. Was this apartment house the cause of Erin’s financial woes? Could she possibly be moving funds out of the bank for the upkeep on the costly old house?
He had thought he would feel a deep satisfaction in catching Cameron’s accomplice in crime, but as he came closer to the truth, the satisfaction had soured in his stomach to a feeling of sickening disgust. He knew now that Erin was lying to him, and somehow he had to find a way to prove his theories about her, as much as he despised the idea.
He took in a long breath as he thought about Lee Sinclair. Erin’s ex-husband was supposedly in Spokane, but with a little checking, Kane had discovered that Lee had moved back to Seattle over six weeks ago—about the same time that Erin had applied for her employee loan. Could she still be involved with him, and was he the drain on her money? Perhaps he was the catalyst in the partnership with Cameron.
Kane’s hands tightened on the steering wheel until his knuckles whitened. He could only hope that he was wrong and that someone else was the embezzler. God, how he hoped so. There were still a few more possibilities, but unfortunately, right now the evidence was stacking up very heavily against Erin O’Toole.
Angrily Kane pushed his disturbing thoughts aside and got out of the car. He was furious at himself, at Erin and particularly at Lee Sinclair, whoever the hell he was.
Erin had just placed the pan of lasagna in the oven when the doorbell rang. Before she could cross the room, the door swung open and thudded against the wall. Kane strode into the room and closed the door just as angrily as he had opened it. Erin had begun to smile, but when her eyes met his, her face froze. His gray eyes were guarded, a stormy fog clouding their depths. His casual clothes, the same ones he had been wearing earlier, were disheveled and his tie was loosened rather haphazardly. “Don’t you ever lock your door?” he muttered.
“Of course I do…but I was in a hurry…”
“That’s no excuse!” he rifled back at her.
Erin was confused by his only slightly suppressed anger, and she felt her temper rise to meet his. “Look, Kane, thanks for your concern, but it’s really not your problem.”
“It is my problem, when it concerns your safety.”
“I’m all right. I just forgot to latch the door. That’s not such a crime.”
A more contrite look softened his features. “I suppose you’re right,” he sighed, raking strong fingers through his coarse brown hair. “I didn’t mean to jump down your throat.” He walked over to her and brushed a light kiss across her forehead. “But I do wish that you would be more careful.”
“I’ll try,” she agreed in order to ease the tension that was building between them. She could see that he was beginning to relax, but the lines near the edge of his eyes looked deeper than they h
ad this morning. She tried to tell herself that it was probably just the first day at the bank that had taken its toll on him, or possibly that he was concerned about Krista. But she couldn’t help feeling that there was a larger problem storming through his mind—a problem that concerned her.
“Would you like a drink?” Erin suggested.
“Oh.” He slapped a palm against his forehead. “I forgot the wine—something came up at the bank. Forgive me?”
He was teasing, Erin knew, but she could sense an inner turbulence below his light attempt at humor. “Consider yourself forgiven,” she agreed, “but my liquor cabinet isn’t all that great.”
Kane walked over to the cupboard that she indicated and searched through the bottles. “Saying that is being kind. It’s downright pathetic.”
“I don’t see that you have much room to complain, since you were the one who forgot the wine in the first place,” she reminded him, trying to suppress a smile.
“Touché, Miss O’Toole. Now let’s see what we have in here.” His voice was muffled as he pushed aside partially filled bottles of liquor and finally pulled out an unopened bottle of brandy. With a triumphant flourish, he held out the bottle for Erin’s inspection. “Look at this. Maybe the evening won’t be a total loss after all!”
“A loss? You practically insisted on inviting yourself over to a home-cooked dinner, and already you’re insinuating that the evening will be wasted?” She could feel him looking at her, but she didn’t turn around and started slicing the greens for a salad. She was only kidding, of course, but he deserved a shot after barging in that way.
In a moment his arms were encircling her waist and his breath moved her hair as he whispered in her ear. His voice was low and full of promise as he spoke. “I don’t think that any time would ever be wasted if I could share it with you.”
She let the knife slip to the counter. His touch was warming her abdomen, and the feel of his hot breath against her neck made her heart race. She tried to keep her head and recapture the light mood of the minute before. “That sounds like a line if I ever heard one.”
“A line? Oh, Erin, don’t you think I’m a little too old for lines? Don’t you know what you mean to me?” There was a torture in his words as if he was admitting something that he himself didn’t want to hear.
His hands persuaded her body to rotate and face him, and when her eyes found his, she saw that his gaze had darkened with a smoky passion. Smoldering embers lit his eyes as he bent his head slowly downward to capture her trembling lips with his. The warm, seductive pressure of his mouth roving passionately over hers made her dizzy. She tried to blink and restore some sanity to her emotions, but she couldn’t. It was as if her entire body began and ended where her lips met his. Her knees began to give way and melt beneath her. And as he tasted her, an aching need began to consume her.