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relaxed a little. “Nothing to be sorry about. Not everyone comes from a large family.” A trace of a fond smile slipped over her full lips. “I have no complaints whatsoever. It wasn’t as if I ever really lacked for anything. Papa Joe saw to that.”
He cocked his head. Was she talking about the bookkeeper or was there someone else who shared the first name? Joe was about as common a name as you could get, other than John. “Papa Joe?”
Her mouth curved more generously. The phrase about someone lighting up a room occurred to him. “Joe Collins,” she clarified, then added, “He’s the bookkeeper at Rainbow’s End.”
“He’s your father?” There hadn’t been any mention of that in any of the notes. He was going to have to get his hands on a more detailed summary of the people at the restaurant.
She crossed her arms in front of her, as if to hold a chill at bay. Instead of looking at him, she’d looked away. “Only father I’ve ever known.”
Which meant that biology didn’t have anything to do with it. If it had, she would have said yes and left it at that. He went back to his revised theory and took a shot at it. “You were adopted?”
She was about to say yes, but caught herself. The antiseptic word didn’t begin to describe what had actually happened to her all those years ago in that Minneapolis back alley.
“I was found,” she corrected. And then she stopped abruptly. Her eyes narrowed like morning glories closing before the approaching dusk. “You always wheedle information out of people this way?”
He grinned, as if she’d discovered his secret. “I like finding things out about people, what makes them tick.” He tried to coax a little more out of her. “Helps pass the time. Everyone’s got a story to tell.”
“Well, mine’s over right now.” Glancing at her watch, she took in the time. They’d already been here over an hour. Maren took her cell phone from her pocket. “I’d better call and tell Max to be on the lookout for the wine delivery.”
A short, dark-haired man wearing nurse’s scrubs looked at her reprovingly as he was about to exit the room. “I’m sorry but you can’t use that in here.” He nodded at her open cell phone. “It interferes with some of the equipment.”
Maren sighed as she flipped the cell closed. Dropping it into her purse, she looked around the area. “Is there a pay phone around here?”
“Right outside those doors.” The nurse pointed toward the ones leading into the main wing of the hospital. Turning back, the man paused to look at Jared. His eyes narrowed as he studied his face. It was obvious that he was trying to place him. “Excuse me, do I know you?”
Everything inside Jared went on high alert, although he made sure that his anxiety didn’t register on his face. Being under cover, he lived daily with the threat of being recognized, being exposed. Of having his cover blown.
The nurse had looked vaguely familiar. And then it hit him. The man had been on duty in the E.R. over at Aurora General the night he’d brought in his partner.
“Sorry.” Jared shrugged casually. “But I don’t think so.”
But the nurse wasn’t ready to retract his question just yet. The man looked at him intently. “You sure?”
“Positive. You must be thinking of someone else.” Aware that Maren was listening, Jared kept his response friendly, low-keyed. “I just moved here a few weeks ago.”
The nurse reluctantly accepted the disclaimer, but he still glanced at him over his shoulder one last time as he walked away.
Maren’s expression was difficult to fathom as he turned back to face her. “He sounded pretty convinced that he knew you.”
Jared laughed shortly, relieved that the man had stopped pressing. “I guess I’ve just got one of those faces people think they’ve see before.”
Maren’s eyes slowly washed over him. He could have sworn he felt the path they took. “Just your average Joe, huh?”
“Yeah.”
Not hardly, she thought. The average man was passable, not handsome, and Jared Stevens’s features were as close to godlike perfection as any she’d ever seen. She searched for a flaw, something that would render him less than perfect, and finally saw one. He had a tiny little scar at the corner of the left side of his mouth.
“Where did you get the scar?”
He didn’t know what she was talking about, only that when she moved around the room, he didn’t know which part of her was more lyrical, her swaying hips or her body in its entirety. Maybe she was involved with someone with underworld ties and that was what this was all about, he thought.
He found he didn’t really like that theory. For a number of reasons. “What?”
“Your scar. This one.” She lightly touched the corner of his mouth. Their eyes met and held for a second. Maren felt something shimmy up her spine, dragging a torch as it went. Momentarily self-conscious, she dropped her hand to her side. “Sorry, none of my business. I’ve got a call to make.” She began digging in her purse for change.
“April’s parents might want a heads up.” Jared handed her a couple of quarters he found in his pocket. “Here.”
“Thanks. And April’s parents live back east. No sense in calling them until it’s over. They can’t do anything three thousand miles way.” She began to walk toward the double doors. “I’ll only be a minute.”
“It was a cat.” Her hand on the double doors, she was about to push them open when he mentioned the feline. “The scar.” He came toward her. “I was on the floor, playing with my mother’s cat, baiting it with some yarn. The cat batted at it, caught my lip with her claw.”
Maren cringed slightly, as if she could feel the blow. “Ouch.”
He laughed at the empathy he saw there. “I believe I said something a little more forceful than that.”
She felt bad about asking. “It’s hardly noticeable, you know. The scar.”
His lips twitched in a smile he didn’t bother suppressing. “You noticed.”
She paused a moment, debating just how honest to be. She decided there was nothing to risk. “I was looking for imperfections.”
His eyebrows pulled together quizzically in confusion. “Why?”
Because she didn’t want him perfect. Not if they were going to work together. Perfect was a place for people like Kirk to reside. “It’s what makes us all human.” The words hung in the air as she went to make her phone call.
“I’m not good at waiting,” Maren said when he mutely raised his eyes toward her. Three other people had come and gone, and they were still waiting to hear how April was doing. In the background, a talk show had given way to a soap opera whose dialogue she was attempting to block. “I always have to know things. Now.”
They had that in common, Jared mused. What else did they have in common? He dropped the magazine he was pretending to read on the chair beside him. It slipped on his apron and slid to the floor. Jared bent to pick it up and this time, tossed it on the small table where the other magazines were sitting.
“Why don’t you go back to the restaurant?” he suggested. “No point in both of us waiting around.”
If she drove off, that would leave him stranded. “How will you get back?”
“I’ll get a cab.”
“Why would you do that? Wait here to find out how she’s doing?” Maren was trying to understand, but unless she was missing something, it didn’t make any sense to her. “You don’t even know her. April’s my responsibility.”
Despite her innocent appearance, the lady