Private Eye Protector. Shirlee McCoy
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that contained a mug and a plate of cookies and setting it on the coffee table.
“Hopefully, she won’t stay awake when Rayne is ready to sleep.”
Ready?
She’d passed ready. Her eyes drooped, her arms felt heavy, and it was all she could do to hold Emma. Pain throbbed behind her eyes, speared through her skull, but she didn’t want to give in to it. Didn’t want to put Emma down or hand her to someone else.
Eight months ago, she’d agreed to be guardian to Chandra’s baby if anything were to happen to Chandra. She hadn’t thought it through when she’d agreed, hadn’t taken more than five minutes to consider how becoming a mother would change her life, hadn’t prayed about it, hadn’t done any of the things she usually did when faced with major decisions.
Probably because there really hadn’t been any decision to make. She and Chandra had been best friends since kindergarten, and there was nothing Rayne would have refused her. And even though the decision had been hasty, Rayne couldn’t regret it. Emma was the best thing in her life.
“Mamamamam.” Emma grabbed a fistful of Rayne’s hair, holding it tight in her chubby hand as she bounced with excitement.
“Careful, kid. Your mom already has a headache. She doesn’t need you adding to it.” Chance unraveled hair from Emma’s fist, smiling as the baby grabbed his nose.
“Why don’t I take her back into the room, get her settled back down before she’s too wide-awake?” Lila reached for Emma, and Rayne didn’t have the strength to protest. She loved her daughter, wanted to care for her, but her leaden body refused to do anything but sag into the couch.
“Thank you, Mrs. Richardson.”
“No need to thank me. I love having a baby around the house. And you’ve always called me Lila. There’s no need to change that now.” Lila smiled as she carried Emma back down the hall.
“Your mother seems like a wonderful lady.”
“She thinks you are, too.” Chance grabbed a cookie and bit into it, holding the plate out to Rayne.
Her stomach lurched and she shook her head. Regretted it immediately when the lurching sensation grew worse. She felt dizzy and sick, her thoughts sliding away.
“Take a deep breath, Rayne. You’ve gone ten shades of pale.” Chance pressed his hand to her forehead, the warm, dry feel of his palm anchoring her to the moment.
“I’ll be okay.”
“You’ve said that several times tonight, but you haven’t convinced me yet.” He handed her the mug, and she took a small sip of the flowery brew, her hand shaking, tea sloshing over her wrist.
“Careful.” Chance wiped the liquid up with a napkin, and Rayne set the mug down on a coaster, not sure she trusted herself to keep holding it.
Done in.
That’s how she felt.
All she wanted to do was lie back, close her eyes and try to forget the pounding pain.
“I think it’s time to say goodnight,” Chance said, and Rayne realized she’d closed her eyes, was slumping forward.
If she slumped any farther, she’d be facedown on the floor.
She straightened, nodded. “You’re right. Sleep is about all I seem capable of.”
“I’ll head out then. If you’re up to it, I’ll stop by tomorrow. I have a few questions I’d like to ask when you’re feeling better.”
“Questions about what?”
“The accident.”
“I don’t remember it, so any questions will be impossible to answer.”
“I know, but you were working with one of my clients last night. You’d told my mother you’d be back by five. When you didn’t show, she called me, and I called the client who said you’d asked for directions to the airport before you’d left.”
“I did?” She couldn’t remember, and trying to push through the fog, grab the memories and hold on to them made her feel sick and disoriented.
“That’s how I was able to find you. I retraced the route to the airport and spotted your car in the ravine. Do you have any idea if you were expecting a friend or family member to fly in?”
“I … really don’t know.” It was possible, though. She couldn’t remember anything after leaving Arizona, but she remembered everything prior to that. Remembered all her friends who’d promised to come for a visit.
Maybe one of them had.
Thoughts swirled and whirled, images flying through her brain too quickly to grasp.
Darkness.
Bright light.
Fear.
The accident?
“It’s possible, but if I’d picked someone up at the airport, wouldn’t he or she have been with me in the car?”
“Maybe you didn’t make it to the airport. The police think you lost control going around a curve in the road. The pavement was covered with a sheet of ice, so it’s impossible to know which direction you were heading.”
“Then whoever was waiting would have called to find out why I wasn’t there, right?”
“For someone with a concussion, you’re thinking fast. Want to check your cell phone?” He smiled, handing her a familiar black purse.
Finally, something she remembered.
Of course, she’d had it for a couple of years, so that wasn’t such good news after all.
She pulled out her cell phone, scrolled through her call history. “The last call came in at five last evening. It’s not a number I know.”
“That would have been a few minutes before your meeting. How about we call and see who it is?”
“Okay.” But concentrating on the numbers made her head spin, and she handed him the phone and leaned back against the couch cushions.
“You’re done in. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I’m going to write down the number, though. I have a friend in the police department who might be able to trace it for us. I’ll give him a call and see what he can come up with.”
“It would be a lot easier if I could just remember.”
“Memories or not, we’ll figure out what happened.”
“We?” She looked into his eyes, felt a quicksilver moment of awareness, knew that she’d looked into his eyes before, been drawn into his gaze.
“Why not?”
Because she had a feeling spending time with Chance could be dangerous. Because she could get lost looking into his eyes and forget all the reasons why relationships weren’t for her. Because she had three rules—three perfectly good rules—for heart-healthy living, and there was no way she planned to break any of them.
“I … don’t know.”
“Then how about we just go with it for now?” He patted her knee, the warmth of his palm seeping through her slacks and into her chilled flesh.
The rules, Rayne. Don’t forget about the rules.
But they were hard to remember with her head pounding and her stomach churning. Hard to remember when she was looking into Chance’s eyes, feeling the warmth of his touch. She wanted to lean on him. She really did. And that terrified her.
“Since I’m too tired to argue, I guess we will.” She tried to smile, knew it fell flat. She needed him to leave before she threw herself into his arms and begged for him to stay.
“Are you