Licensed To Marry. Charlotte Douglas
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confusion and the effects of the drugs she’d been given.
“My father was murdered.”
She’d stated a fact, not asked a question, so Kyle said nothing.
“Did the secretary identify the policeman who told them to stay?” she asked.
“Haskel’s secretary, your father and a policeman doing a final sweep to clear the building were the only fatalities.”
This time she’d didn’t contradict him about her father. She was either in shock or finally coming to grips with his death.
She raised her face and fixed her tear-filled, periwinkle-blue gaze on him. “Why…how could the governor survive and not Daddy?”
Another good question. Even in the depths of grief and the haze of tranquilizers, she exhibited a remarkable grasp of what was important.
“According to the governor’s account,” Kyle explained, “he was leaning down to remove something from the bottom drawer of his desk when the blast occurred. The massive piece of mahogany furniture between him and the direction of the blast absorbed most of the impact.”
Tears overflowed her eyes and trickled down her cheeks. Her full bottom lip quivered. “And Daddy was on the other side of the desk.”
“I’m sorry.”
She swiped away the tears with the back of her hand. “Thank you for telling me. I had to know, no matter how awful…”
He marveled at her poise. Even under the most horrific circumstances, she was thoughtful and kind, considerate of others in spite of her grief. If, as she’d said, Josiah Quinlan had raised her on his own, the man had done a damn good job.
He thought of Molly, abandoned by her mother, with only Kyle to take care of her. Molly would be counting on him for everything. He hoped he could do half as good a job as Josiah had with his daughter.
Laura turned her head on the pillow toward the table where he’d emptied his hands when he’d entered the room. Following her gaze, he picked up the bouquet of pink roses he’d left there. “I’ll have the nurse put these in some water.”
“Thank you.” A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. “And the science fiction video game?”
“For Jeremy. He’s in the pediatric wing on the next floor. I thought I’d check on him before heading back to the ranch.”
“You are a remarkable man, Kyle.”
Embarrassed by her praise, he shook his head.
“Please, one more question?” she asked.
He nodded.
“Why am I here? I don’t have any injuries, do I?”
“No physical injuries, but you’ve suffered severe emotional trauma. They’re just keeping you for observation.” He didn’t add how Daniel Austin had pulled strings to have her admitted, to make sure she had someone to watch out for her until C.J. arrived. Laura had no relatives, and Daniel had made certain she wasn’t left alone to deal with her father’s death. “You’ll be released in the morning, and C.J. can take you home.”
He heard footsteps and glanced into the hallway to see Frank and C.J. waiting outside the door. “I have to go.”
Laura still reminded him of an angel—a grief-stricken angel. “You’ve been very kind,” she said.
This time he couldn’t resist the impulse to touch her. He cupped the side of her face in his hand. “Get some sleep.”
He wished he could assure her that everything would be all right in the morning, but he couldn’t. With her father dead, it would be a long time before things would feel all right again for Laura Quinlan.
She leaned against his hand and closed her eyes. He waited, cradling her face until he was certain she’d fallen asleep. Then he slipped quietly from the room.
Motioning to Frank and C.J., he led them to the visitors’ lounge at the end of the corridor, thinking as he always did when he saw them together what a handsome couple they made, Frank with his dark hair and military bearing and C.J. with her honey-blond hair and curvaceous figure—and both with minds as sharp as steel traps.
“How is she?” C.J. asked in her clipped British accent.
“Taking it hard, but she’s sleeping now.” Kyle glanced at Frank and noted the tension in his expression. “What’s happened?”
Frank, his exhaustion showing, ran his hand over his short, military-cut hair. “There was a break-in at the Quinlan Research Institute this afternoon.”
“And?” Kyle asked, sensing the worst.
C.J.’s light-brown eyes telegraphed her anxiety. “Someone’s stolen enough D-5 to poison every city water system in Montana.”
Chapter Three
“Finish your breakfast, doodlebug,” Kyle said to Molly. She graced him with an adoring smile, and wonder filled him at how much he could love one tiny human being.
He sat with his daughter in the large, sunny kitchen at the ranch. Daniel and the other agents had eaten earlier, but Kyle had waited to have breakfast with Molly.
He finished the last bite of feather-light pancakes with huckleberry syrup and handed his empty plate to Dale McMurty, the ranch’s cook and housekeeper, who also watched Molly while Kyle was working.
“Excellent breakfast, as always, Mrs. Mac.”
“Better for eatin’ than wearin’.” The plump older woman grinned and nodded toward Molly whose face, round with baby fat, was smeared with purple syrup.
“Can you ride wif me and Jewel?” Molly took another bite of the pancake Kyle had cut into bits for her.
Jewel, granddaughter of Dale and Patrick McMurty who helped Daniel run the ranch, was teaching Molly to ride on Ribbons, the new pony Kyle had bought her. If he’d had his druthers, he’d spend the morning teaching Molly to ride. But with the Black Order terrorists still on the loose almost four weeks after the bombing, catching them had to be his priority. With a guilty conscience, he braced himself for her disappointment.
“I can’t, sweetheart. Daddy has work to do.”
“Wif Frank and Court and Daniel?” Her wide, innocent eyes, green like his own, regarded him with a seriousness too old for her years.
“That’s right.” Her somberness reproached him harder than tears or a temper tantrum would have. She was too young to look so solemn. He reached across the table and tickled her to make her laugh. “But I’ll spend tonight after supper with you. You pick out a favorite book for us to read.”
Still giggling, Molly clapped her plump hands and bounced up and down in her booster seat. “Green Eggs and Ham.”
Kyle suppressed a groan. He knew that book by heart, had read it till its singsong nonsense rhymes made him cross-eyed, but it was Molly’s favorite, and if she wanted to hear it for the umpteenth time, he’d read it again for his favorite girl.
The back door swung open with a bang, and twelve-year-old Jewel McMurty stomped into the kitchen, blond ponytail swinging. “You ready, shrimp?” she called to Molly. “I got the horses saddled.”
“Morning, Jewel.” Kyle said. “Molly will be with you in a minute.”
He cleaned his daughter’s face with a damp paper towel, then helped her into her jacket. “All set?”
Molly jumped up and down with excitement. “I like riding Ribbons.”
“Give Daddy a kiss.”
She threw her chubby arms around his neck, then hurried toward Jewel who waited at the back door.
“Jewel!”