He shoved the paper into the garbage can and headed toward the counter, wondering if his careful planning had been compromised by that seemingly harmless headline.
Hed put his plan into action forty-eight hours earlier. The first step was a flight from Texas to Maryland, where hed reserved a room in his own name at the Baltimore Courtland Hotel. Hed taken a cab from the airport to the hotel and checked into his room, with explicit instructions that he did not want housekeeping services. After unpacking some clothing and toiletries, hed taken another cab to the bus terminal and paid cash for a ticket to Washington, D.C.
In Washington, hed picked up the rental car
his agent, Ian Edwards, had reserved for him. Then hed found a small roadside motel, paid cash for the room and crashed for a few hours before driving through to Fairweather yesterday morning, where hed checked into another Courtland hotel under Ians name.
He wasnt convinced the circuitous route and subterfuge were necessary, but after what had happened in Austin he didnt want to take any chances. If someone was looking for him, trying to track his moves, theyd be concentrating on the Baltimore area.
Unless they happened to pick up a copy of the Fairweather Gazette.
Hed told no one of his plan to return to Fairweather. It was just his bad luck that hed run into Traci Harper as soon as hed arrived in town yesterday afternoon. Traci was an old high-school friend, now a reporter with the Gazette. He should have anticipated that she would somehow turn a chance encounter into a news item.
His only consolation was that it was unlikely anyone outside of this smack-in-the-middle-of-nowhere town read the local rag. Few of his associates even knew hed grown up in Fairweather, which made it the obvious place for him to find solitude and anonymity.
Or maybe what hed really wanted to find was Nikki.
He took the two steaming mugs to a vacant table near the window, where he could see her.
He hadnt let himself think about her until he was on the plane; he hadnt been able to think about anything else since. After more than five years, he wouldnt have expected that shed figure so prominently in his thoughts.
Maybe it was the realization that he could have been killed, the stark reminder of his own mortality. Whatever the reason, hed suddenly felt a compelling need to see her againto explain something he still wasnt sure he understood himself.
He watched as she disconnected her call, tucked the phone back into her purse. As she crossed the street, her short blond hair bobbed with each step.
She was dressed in casual work attire: short-sleeved sweater in a misty shade of blue, tailored pants a few shades darker, white running shoes. It wasnt a seductive outfit by any stretch of the imagination, but he felt the familiar tug of desire, anyway. Just like the first time hed seen her.
Hed fought it at first, refused to believe it. The coolly reserved, completely professional physiotherapist wasnt anything at all like the women he was usually attracted to. But something inside him had recognized her as his mate.
Hed pursued her relentlessly, and when hed finally broken through her barriers, hed found an incredibly passionate womana woman whod touched him on levels he hadnt known existed before he met her. Whatever else might have gone wrong between them, the sex had always been phenomenal.
He shifted in his seat, cursing his body for choosing to remember that now.
Thirty minutes, she reminded him, sliding into the chair across from him.
He pushed one of the mugs toward her. A little bit of cream, a half a teaspoon of sugar. Hed remembered her preference, as hed remembered everything about her.
She wrapped her hands around the mug, a wry smile curving her lips. Its been five years. A lot of things have changed in that time.
Some things never do, he countered.
Are you going to tell me the real reason you came back to Fairweather now?
You always did cut right to the chase. It was one of the things hed admired about her from the start. Shed been the first therapist assigned to work with him after the injury that had prematurely ended his career, and hed always appreciated her straightforward approacheven when she was telling him things he didnt want to hear.
So why are you here?
I was ready for a vacation? he suggested.
And you chose Fairweather? Her eyes narrowed speculatively. Or is your sudden reappearance somehow linked to the explosion in your apartment?
Talk about cutting to the chase. How did you know about that?
It was on the news.
Colin had caught mention of it himself during the previous evenings sports highlights. The commentary was brief, mentioning only that police were investigating a suspected bombing at the residence of Tornadoes head coach Colin McIver. There was no mention of Maria Vasquez, the forty-seven-year-old mother of five, whod been cleaning his apartment at the time and who was still fighting for her life in ICU.
Was it a gas leak? Nikki asked.
He only wished the explanation was something so innocuous. The cause is still being investigated.